
Book tlo^^ 

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THE EARLIER ESSAYS OF 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



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JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



THE EARLIER ESSAYS 

OP 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

ERNEST GODFREY HOFFSTEN, B.S., Ph.D. 

MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL, ST. LOUIS, MO. 



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1916 

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I love thee for thyself — thyself alone ; 

For that great soul whose breath most full and rare 

Shall to humanity a message bear, 

Flooding their dreary waste with organ tone." 

{Marie Whitens tribute to Lowell after 
they became engaged.) 



PREFACE 

These essays are representative of the earlier writings of 
Lowell, and have been, with the exception of the one on 
Thoreau, taken from the collection known as " Fireside 
Travels." The essay on Thoreau was first published as a 
review of that author in October, 1865. 

It will be readily observed that there is just as much of 
the personality of Lowell in these essays as of the subject 
matter upon which he is writing. The reader must therefore 
be prepared for many digressions, which, indeed, at times 
may seem unduly extended. To enable the student to ap- 
preciate all the more the numerous literary references and 
allusions, the editor has sought to make the notes as copious 
as is advisable ; for, it must be added, an overabundance of 
notes tends to detract from the interest in any narrative. 
However, Lowell, without some guidance, would prove an 
enigma. The reader will find, furthermore, that the use of 
a dictionary is an absolute necessity. The results to be 
obtained from a careful study of these essays cannot be 
other than broadening, for Lowell's mind was a veritable 
storehouse of fact and fancy, and he was exceedingly gen- 
erous in divulging his best to his readers. In fact, Lowell 
is a liberal education. 

I desire to express my sincere obligation to Miss Mary 
Fisher of the McKinley High School for her guidance in 
and review of the notes. 

E. G. H. 
vi 



CONTENTS 



I. 


Introduction : 










Chronology of Lowell's life ix 




Lowell's life and literary style 






xi 




First publications of the essays in 


this 


volume 


xix 




Books of reference 




. 


XX 


II. 


Cambridge Thirty Years Ago 




, 


1 


IIL 


A MoosEHEAD Journal 




, 


52 


IV. 


Thoreau .... 






90 


V. 


At Sea 




. 


108 


VI. 


In the Mediterranean 




o 


120 


VII. 


Italy 






127 


VIII. 


A Few Bits of Roman Mosaic 




. 


183 


IX. 


Notes on the Essays . 




, 


209 



vii 



CHRONOLOGY OF LOWELL'S LIFE 

1819, Feb. 22, date of birth at " Ebnwood." 
1838, graduated from Harvard. 

1840, degree from Harvard Lav7 School. 

1841, published " A Year's Life and Other Poems." 

1843, helped found the monthly magazine entitled The 
Pioneer. 

1844, December, married Marie White. 

1848, published " The Biglow Papers " (First series). 

1848, published " A Fable for Critics." 

1848, published "The Vision of Sir Launfal." 

1851, traveled abroad. 

1853, wife died. 

1855-77, Professor of Belles-Lettres at Harvard. 

1855-56, abroad for purposes of study. 

1857, married Miss Frances Dunlap. 

1857-61, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. 

1862, published " The Biglow Papers " (Second series). 

1864-72, one of the editors of the North American 

Review. 
1870, published " Among My Books," collected essays. 
1877-80, Minister to Spain. 
1880-85, Minister to England. 

1884, address on " Democracy." 

1885, second wife died. 

1891, August 12, death at " Elmwood." 
ix 



LOWELL'S LIFE 

James Russell Lowell was born February 22, 1819. 
The first quarter of the nineteenth century stands out prom- 
inently as a time when the foremost men in American 
letters first saw the light. Emerson, Whittier, Thoreau, 
OHver Wendell Holmes, Theodore Parker, Walt Whitman, 
T. W. Higginson, W. W. Story, the sculptor, — all of these 
men were born during these years. And naturally as 
they grew from boyhood into manhood their friendship 
for each other waxed strong, out of which, due to personal 
and Uterary ties, there was estabhshed a soHd foundation 
upon which must rest America's claims to Uterary and 
artistic recognition the world over. 

The name Lowell, even before the birth of our essayist, 
has stood in American fife for high principles and great 
accomplishments. The parents of James were inspiring to 
all of the children and became people of prominence in 
their chosen fields. The city of Lowell in Massachusetts, 
and the Lowell Institute of Boston, received their names 
from uncles of the author. James Russell Lowell stands 
forth as one of the most prominent members of the family. 
His career is indicated by his versatiHty : he was a poet, 
an essayist, a traveler, a teacher, a critic, a pubhc speaker, 
a reformer, a poHtical writer and diplomatist ; and in all 



xii LOWELL'S LIFE 

that he said or wrote there are the unmistakable evidences 
of scholarsliip and breadth of \dew. 

The chronology of Lowell's career, on page ix, will 
give at a glance the chief points of interest with wliich we 
are concerned, so that there will be no detailed repetition 
of them here. 

Lowell was born in the historic mansion, called '' Elm- 
wood," situated in the suburbs of Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts. WilUam Vaughn Moody, the American poet and 
dramatist, thus describes this noted New England land- 
mark: 

''It stands back from the encroachment of modern 
houses and street-car lines, in a shelter of splendid EngUsh 
elms, and there is a flavor of more generous days in its 
broad hues, its small-paned windows, and its rich colonial 
white and yellow." 

In this connection it is interesting to note the comment 
of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a boyhood friend and 
life-long admirer of Lowell's, concerning the latter's un- 
dying attachment to his birthplace : 

''One of his most attractive traits was his passionate 
love of his birthplace, and although Matthew Arnold 
pitied him for being obliged to return to it from London, 
he was really nowhere else so happy." 

Lowell, himself, in the essay entitled "A Moosehead 
Journal," testifies in the following passage to the sym- 
pathy that should always exist between a man and his 
home : "I cannot help thinking that the indefinable some- 
thing which we call character is cumulative, — that the 
influence of the same climate, scenery and associations for 
several generation^ is necessary to its gathering head, 



LOWELL'S LIFE xiii 

and that the process is disturbed by the continual change 
of place." 

Lowell as a youth attended the school in Cambridge 
conducted by WiUiam Wells, where he was prepared for 
Harvard. As a college student, Lowell was not a success ; 
that is, from the professors' views in the matter. He 
was too much of a free lance. Indeed, he stirred up much 
of what is called school spirit, together with his college 
chum, William Story, who afterwards became a great 
sculptor. In college, Lowell was the editor of Har- 
vardiana, the students' paper, and in his senior year was 
chosen class poet. Because of his sense of humor dis- 
closing itself at the wrong time, Lowell was deprived of the 
privilege of graduating with his class, and instead was 
sent, before the term closed, to Concord, where he was 
privately tutored in order to fulfill the college require- 
ments. The following letter, taken from Higginson's 
''Old Cambridge," throws interesting light upon the inci- 
dent which caused Lowell's temporary suspension : 

''June 28, 1893. 
" .... I was a sophomore, and sat half a dozen seats 
directly behind him. He came in as usual, — it was the 
day he had been chosen class poet, by one or two votes 
(I think) over my cousin John Ware, — and seemed to 
regard the occasion as wholly compHmentary to himself. 
His handsome face was richly suffused with the purple 
glow of youth, and wreathed in smiles, as he rose, — my 
venerable grandfather (Rev. Henry Ware, D.D.) had with 
trembhng voice just begun the service — and bowed, 
smirking right and left to the surprised congregation.. 



xiv LOWELL'S LIFE 

It was the affair of a minute : my recollection is that he 
was soon persuaded to sit down, and only made one more 
ineffectual attempt to rise. The short service — it was 
evening prayer, of course — went through and ended 
decently and in order. Presumably, 'Old Quin' (Presi- 
dent Quincy) was in his customary seat, and had a fair 
view of the proceedings. We soon learned that it had 
been dealt with quite seriously; by what seemed a hard 
sentence, he had been suspended till after class day. I 
suppose the date must have been March or April (1838), 
but am not sure." 

After his graduation, Lowell pursued the study of law 
in the Harvard Law School and received his degree in three 
years. There appears, however, to be no record of his 
active practice of law. Lowell had all through college 
trained himself to be a writer ; that was his one ambition, 
so that law, of course, had not much attraction for him, 
although he was admitted to the Boston bar. Lowell 
very soon put his aspirations into tangible form, for a year 
later, in 1841, he pubHshed the volume entitled, ''A 
Year's Life and Other Poems." Two years later he helped 
found a magazine entitled The Pioneer, to which Haw- 
thorne, Poe and Whittier were contributors. 

The great source of inspiration to Lowell at tliis time in 
his career was Marie White, whom he married in 1844. 
Her life was one of sweetness and poetic impulse ; traits, 
indeed, to which Lowell responded with equal nobility. 
It was she who inspired him to contribute his share to the 
anti-slavery agitation. 

Four years after the death of his wife, Lowell was 
appointed, in 1855, professor of Belles-Lettres at Harvard, 



LOWELVS life XV 

succeeding Longfellow. With the exception of two or 
three years' interruption, Lowell served in this capacity 
for twenty-two years. During this time, also, he married 
Miss Frances Dunlap; became editor of The Atlantic 
Monthly, and one of the editors of The North American 
Review. His pen was ever active, writing poetry and 
essays, as well as Hterary and political criticisms. Perhaps 
his class-room work suffered sometimes because of liter- 
ary work elsewhere, yet he brought to class sufficient 
inspiration to last the average student many days. 

The latter part of Lowell's career, it will be noted in 
the chronology, was devoted to his country in. the capac- 
ity of foreign minister to Spain and England. In 
England, Lowell formed friendships with the very best of 
English writers and statesmen. Throughout his letters 
he indicates this. Such men as Thackeray, Arnold, 
Clough and Leslie Stephen were very close to his heart. 
But Lowell did far more than cultivate selfish interests 
abroad. He was a briUiant man, and as such he im- 
pressed England with his American grace and scholarship. 
Lowell was always democratic, even in the very conserva- 
tive EngUsh gatherings in which his ambassadorship 
placed him; but he maintained a fine spirit and dignity 
that raised America high in English estimation. His noted 
lecture on ''Democracy," dehvered at Birmingham in 
1884, may be cited as the full fruition of a great doctrine, 
to which he was an undying subscriber. The Queen, 
herself, said of Lowell, when. he left England, in 1885, 
"that no ambassador had ever excited more interest or 
won more general regard in England." 

One of the finest tributes ever paid to the memory of 



xvi lowelVs life 

I 

Lowell is the following from the pen of Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson: ''His death (Aug. 12, 1891) took from 
us a man rich beyond all other Americans in poetic 
impulses, in width of training, in varied experiences, and 
in readiness of wit; sometimes entangled and hampered 
by his own great wealth ; unequal in expression, yet rising 
on the greatest occasions to the highest art; blossoming 
early, yet maturing late; with a certain indolence of 
temperament, yet accomplishing all the results of strenuous 
labor; not always judicial in criticism, especially in 
early years, yet steadily expanding and deepening; re- 
taining in age the hopes and sympathies of his youth; 
and dying, with singular good fortune, just after he had 
gathered into final shape the literary harvest of his Ufe." 

Lowell's essays will be found thought-provoldng. But 
they will repay one for every moment of time spent in 
their study. Halleck, in his "History of American Liter- 
ature," makes this reference to Lowell: ''If we should 
wish to persuade a group of moderately intelligent per- 
sons to read less fiction and more solid literature, it is 
doubtful if we should accomplish our purpose more easily 
than by inducing them to dip into some of these essays." 

Lowell had a mind that was overflowing with wisdom 
and imagination ; and his essays show the constant inter- 
mixture of these two qualities. He was a very wide reader 
and never hesitated to refer to a character in hfe or fiction, 
an incident, however obscure to most of us, or to combine 
in a figurative manner, allusions that often appear in- 
congruous. As Higginson says: "Lowell was always 
liable to be entangled by his own wealth of thought ; his 



LOWELL'S LIFE xvil 

prose and verse alike are full of involved periods, conun- 
drums within conundrums." 

But Lowell, himself, acknowledged this quality, as the 
following prefatory note to his essays pubHshed April 25, 
1890, will testify: 

''Though capable of whatever drudgery in acquisition, 
I am by temperament impatient of detail in communi- 
cating what I have acquired, and too often put into a 
parenthesis or a note conclusions arrived at by long study 
and reflection when perhaps it had been wiser to expand 
them, not to mention that much of my illustration was 
extemporaneous and is now lost to me. I am apt also to 
fancy that what has long been familiar to my own mind 
must be equally so to the minds of others, and this uncom- 
fortable suspicion makes me shy of insisting on what may 
be already only too little in need of it." 

Lowell's style, however, as to sentence structure, is 
always clear and crisp. Furthermore, he is entertaining; 
one can hardly fall asleep over these essays. He was 
also a great master of dialect, examples of which will 
be found in the ''Moosehead Journal" and ''In the 
Mediterranean." However, it must not be overlooked 
that Lowell, at times, indulged in far-fetched figures, that 
may be regarded as grotesque, as in the following example 
taken from the essay on "Italy": "Milton is the only 
man who has gotten much poetry out of a cataract, and 
that was a cataract in his eye." 

What must impress the reader of Lowell, it seems to me, 
more than all else is the richness and keenness of his 
thoughts. Furthermore, the smooth and elegant prose in 



xviii LOWELL'S LIFE 

which they are expressed gives them a permanency that 
is characteristic of proverbial expressions. Are not these 
quaUties patent in the following extracts selected from the 
essays in this volume? 

From ''Cambridge Thirty Years Ago" : "The wise man 
travels to find liimself. " 

From ''In the Mediterranean": "It is so delightful 
to meet a man who knows just what you do not. Nay, I 
think the tired mind finds something in plump ignorance 
like what the body feels in cushiony moss. " 

From "A Moosehead Journal," referring to any Ameri- 
can town : " It has a good chance of being pretty ; but, like 
most American towns, it is in a hobbledehoy age, growing 
yet, and one cannot tell what may happen." 

From "Thoreau" : "Mr. Thoreau seems to us to insist 
in pubhc on going back to flint and steel, when there is a 
match-box in his pocket which he knows very well how to 
use at a pinch." 

From "Italy": "The driving-wheels of all-powerful 
Nature are in the back of the head, and, as man is the 
highest type of organization, so a nation is better or worse 
as it advances toward the highest type of man, or recedes 
from it." 

From "Thoreau": "We do not believe that the way 
to a true cosmopolitanism carries one into the woods or 
the society of musquashes." 

From "Thoreau": "The Puritanism of the past 
found its unwilling poet in Hawthorne, the rarest creative 
imagination of the century, the rarest in some respects 
since Shakespeare." 

The essays contained in this volume are concerned, for 



LOWELL'S LIFE XIX 

the most part, with travel. They are not, however, merely 
objective ; that is, only descriptions of things seen : they 
are also subjective, by which is meant that Lowell's own 
personality, wisdom and humor infuse themselves in 
them throughout. It is characteristic of Lowell to write, 
as in the following extract from " In the Mediterranean " : 
" But after all, Nature, though she may be more beauti- 
ful, is nowhere so entertaining as in man, and the best 
thing I have seen and learned at sea is our chief mate." 
Lowell's interest in mankind supersedes all else. As we 
follow him on his travels we shall take many httle jour- 
neys in the realm of comment and reminiscence, and find 
the experience instructive as well as entertaining. 



FIRST PUBLICATIONS OF THE ESSAYS IN 
THIS VOLUME 

"Cambridge Thirty Years Ago," Putnam's Magazine, 
May, 1853. 

" A Moosehead Journal," Putnam's Magazine, November, 
1853. 

"Fireside Travels," Putnam's Magazine, April and May, 
1854. 

" Fireside Travels," by James Russell Lowell ; Boston, 
Ticknor and Fields, 1864. 

"Thoreau" appeared in the North American Review for 
October, 1865, occasioned by "Letters to Various Persons" 
by Henry D. Thoreau ; Boston, Ticknor and Fields. 



BOOKS OF EEFERENCE FOR THE STUDY OF 
LOWELL'S LIFE AND ASSOCIATIONS 

J. R. Lowell : F. M. Underwood, 1882. 

Letters of James Russell Lowell : Charles Eliot Norton, 
1893. 

Old Cambridge: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1900. 

James Russell Lowell ; a Biography : Horace E. Scudder, 
1901. 

James Russell Lowell and His Friends : Edward Everett 
Hale, 1901. 

A General Survey of American Literature : Mary Fisher, 
1901. 

Literary Friends and Acquaintances : W. D. Howells, 1902. 

Literary Pilgrimages in New England : Edwin Bacon, 
1902. 

J. R. Lowell : Ferris Greenslet, 1905. 



THE EARLIER ESSAYS OF 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



EARLIER ESSAYS 



CAMBRIDGE^ THIRTY YEARS AGO 

A MEMOIR ADDRESSED TO THE EDELMANN STORG° IN ROME 

In those quiet old winter evenings, around our Roman 
fireside, it was not seldom, my dear Storg, that we talked 
of the advantages of travel, and in speeches not so long that 
our cigars would forget their fire (the measure of just con- 
versation) debated the comparative advantages of the 5 
Old and New Worlds. You will remember how serenely 
I bore the imputation of provincialism, while I asserted 
that those advantages were reciprocal ; that an orbed and 
balanced life would revolve between the Old and the New 
as opposite, but not antagonistic poles, the true equator 10 
lying somewhere midway between them. I asserted, also, 
that there were two epochs at which a man might travel, — 
before twenty, for pure enjoyment, and after thirty, for 
instruction. At twenty, the eye is sufficiently delighted 
with merely seeing ; new things are pleasant only because 15 
they are not old; and we take everjrthing heartily and 
naturally in the right way, — for even mishaps are like 
knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them 
by the blade or the handle. After thirty, we carry along 
our scales, with lawful weights stamped by experience, 20 
and our chemical tests acquired by study, with which to 

B 1 



I EARLIER ESSAYS 

ponder and assay all arts, institutions, and manners, and 
to ascertain either their absolute worth or their merely 
relative value to ourselves. On the whole, I declared 
myself in favor of the after thirty method, — was it partly 
5 (so difficult is it to distinguish between opinions and per- 
sonahties) because I had tried it myself, though with scales 
so imperfect and tests so inadequate? Perhaps so, but 
more because I held that a man should have travelled 
thoroughly round himself and the great terra incognita° 

lo just outside and inside his own threshold, before he under- 
took voyages of discovery to other worlds. ''Far countries 
he can safest visit who himself is doughty," says Beowulf. ° 
Let him first thoroughly explore that strange country laid 
down on the maps as Seauton° ; let him look down into 

15 its craters, and find whether they be burnt-out or only 
smouldering; let him know between the good and evil 
fruits of its passionate tropics; let him experience how 
healthful are its serene and high-lying table-lands; let 
him be many times driven back (till he wisely consent to 

20 be baffled) from its speculative northwest passages that 
lead mostly to the dreary solitudes of a sunless world, be- 
fore he think himself morally equipped for travels to more 
distant regions. But does he commonly even so much as 
think of this, or, while buying amplest trunks for his cor- 

25 poreal apparel, does it once occur to him how very small 
a portmanteau will contain all his mental and spiritual 
outfit ? It is more often true that a man who could scarce 
be induced to expose his unclothed body even to a village 
of prairie-dogs, will complacently display a mind as naked 

30 as the day it wag born, without so much as a fig-leaf of 
acquirement on it, in every gallery of Europe, — 



EARLIER ESSAYS 3 

"Not earing, so that sumpter-horse, the back, 
Be hung with gaudy trappings, in what coarse, 
Yea, rags most beggarly, they clothe the soul." 

If not with a robe dyed in the Tyrian purple° of imagina- 
tive culture, if not with the close-fitting, work-day dress 5 
of social or business training, — at least, my dear Storg, 
one might provide himself with the merest waist-clout of 
modesty ! 

But if it be too much to expect men to traverse and 
survey themselves before they go abroad, we might cer- 10 
tainly ask that they should be familiar with their own 
villages. If not even that, then it is of little import whither 
they go ; and let us hope that, by seeing how calmly their 
own narrow neighborhood bears their departure, they 
may be led to think that the circles of disturbance set in 15 
motion by the fall of their tiny drop into the ocean of 
eternity, will not have a radius of more than a week in 
any direction ; and that the world can endure the subtrac- 
tion of even a justice of the peace with provoking equa- 
nimity. In this way, at least, foreign travel may do them 20 
good, — may make them, if not wiser, at any rate less 
fussy. Is it a great way to go to school, and a great fee 
to pay for the lesson ? We cannot give too much for the 
genial stoicism wliich, when life flouts us, and says, Put 
that in your pipe and smoke it I can puff away with as 25 
sincere a relish as if it were tobacco of Mount Lebanon in 
a narghileh of Damascus. ° 

After all, my dear Storg, it is to know things that one has 
need to travel, and not men. Those force us to come to 
them, but these come to us, — sometimes whether we will 30 



4 EARLIER ESSAYS 

or no. These exist for us in every variety in our own town. 
You may find your antipodes without a voyage to China ; 
he fives there, just round the next corner, precise, formal, 
the slave of precedent, making all his teacups with a break 
5 in the edge, because his model had one, and your fancy 
decorates him with an endlessness of airy pigtail. There, 
too, are John BuU, Jean Crapaud, Hans Sauerkraut, Pat 
Murphy, ° and the rest. 
It has been well said : 

lo '*He needs no ship to cross the tide, 

Who, in the lives around him, sees 
Fair window-prospects opening wide 
O'er history's fields on every side, 
Rome, Egypt, England, Ind, and Greece. 

IS "Whatever moulds of various brain 

E'er shaped the world to weal or woe, 
Whatever empires' wax and wane. 
To him who hath not eyes in vain, 
His village-microcosm can show." 

20 But things are good for nothing out of their natural habitat ° 
If the heroic Barnum° had succeeded in transplanting 
Shakespeare's house to America, what interest would it 
have had for us, torn out of its appropriate setting in 
softly-hilled Warwickshire, which showed us that the 

25 most English of poets must be born in the most English 
of counties ? I mean by a Thing that which is not a mere 
spectacle, that which some virtue of the mind leaps forth 
to, as it also sends, forth its sympathetic flash to the mind, 
as soon as they come within each other's sphere of attrac- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 5 

tion, and, with instantaneous coalition, form a new product 
— knowledge. 

Such, in the understanding it gives us of early Roman 
history, is the little territory around Rome, the gentis 
cunabula° without a sight of which Livy° and Niebuhr° 5 
and the maps are vain. So, too, one must go to Pompeii 
and the Museo Borbonico° to get a true conception of that 
wondrous artistic nature of the Greeks, strong enough, 
even in that petty colony, to survive foreign conquest and 
to assimilate barbarian blood, showing a grace and fertility 10 
of invention whose Roman copies Rafaello° himself could 
only copy, and enchanting even the base utensils of the 
kitchen with an inevitable sense of beauty to which we 
subterranean Northmen have not yet so much as dreamed 
of climbing. Mere sights one can see quite as well at 15 
home. Mont Blanc does not tower more grandly in the 
memory than did the dream-peak which loomed afar on 
the morning horizon of hope, nor did the smoke-palm of 
Vesuvius stand more erect and fair, with tapering stem 
and spreading top, in that Parthenopean° air, than under 20 
the diviner sky of imagination. I know what Shakespeare 
says about homekeeping youths, and I can fancy what 
you will add about America being interesting only as a 
phenomenon, and uncomfortable to live in, because we 
have not yet done with getting ready to live. But is not 25 
your Europe, on the other hand, a place where men have 
done living for the present, and of value chiefly because 
of the men who had done living in it long ago? And if, 
in our rapidly-moving country, one feel sometimes as if 
he had his home on a railroad train, is there not also a satis- 3° 
faction in knowing that one is going somewhere? To what 



6 EARLIER ESSAYS 

end visit Europe, if people carry with them, as most do, 
their old parochial horizon, going hardly as Americans 
even, much less as men? Have we not both seen persons 
abroad who put us in mind of parlor gold-fish in their vase, 
5 isolated in that little globe of their own element, incapable 
of communication with the strange world around them, a 
show themselves, while it was always doubtful if they 
could see at all beyond the limits of their portable prison? 
The wise man travels to discover himself; it is to find 

lo himself out that he goes out of himself and his habitual 
associations, trying everything in turn till he find that, 
one activit}^, that royal standard, sovran over him by 
divine right, toward which all the disbanded powers of his 
nature and the irregular tendencies of his life gather joy- 

15 fully, as to the common rallying-point of their loyalty. 

All these things we debated while the ilex° logs upon 

the hearth burned down to tinlding coals, over which a 

gray, soft moss of ashes grew betimes, mocking the poor 

wood with a pale travesty of that green and gradual 

20 decay on forest-floors, its natural end. Already the clock 
at the Cappuccini° told the morning quarters, and on the 
pauses of our talk no sound intervened but the muffled 
hoot of an owl in the near convent-garden, or the rattling 
tramp of a patrol of that French army which keeps him a 

25 prisoner in his own city who claims to lock and unlock the 
doors of heaven. But still the discourse would eddy round 
one obstinate rocky tenet of mine, for I maintained, you 
remember, that the wisest man was he who stayed at 
home; that to see the antiquities of the Old World was 

30 nothing, since the youth of the world was reaUy no farther 
away from us than our own youth; and that, moreover, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 7 

we had also in America things amazingly old, as our boys, 
for example. Add, that in the end this antiquity is a 
matter of comparison, which skips from place to place as 
nimbly as Emerson's Sphinx, ° and that one old thing is 
good only till we have seen an older. England is ancient $ 
till we go to Rome ; Etruria° dethrones Rome, but only to 
pass this sceptre of antiquity which so lords it over our 
fancies to the Pelasgi,° from whom Egypt straightway 
wrenches it, to give it up in turn to older India. And 
whither then? As well rest upon the first step, since the lo 
effect of what is old upon the mind is single and positive, 
not cumulative. As soon as a thing is past, it is as in- 
finitely far away from us as if it had happened millions 
of years ago. And if the learned Huet° be correct, who 
reckoned that all human thoughts and records could be is 
included in ten folios, what so frightfully old as we our- 
selves, who can, if we choose, hold in our memories every 
syllable of recorded time, from the first crunch of Eve's 
teeth in the apple downward, being thus ideally con- 
temporary with hoariest Eld ?° 20 

"The pyramids built up with newer might 
To us are nothing novel, nothing strange." 

Now, my dear Storg, you know my (what the phrenolo- 
gists call) inhabitiveness and adhesiveness, — how I stand 
by the old thought, the old thing, the old place, and the 25 
old friend, till I am very sure I have got a better, and even 
then migrate painfully. Remember the old Arabian story, 
and think how hard it is to pick up all the pomegranate- 
seeds of an opponent's argument, and how, as long as one 
remains, you are as far from the end as ever. Since I have 30 



8 EARLIER ESSAYS 

you entirely at my mercy, (for you cannot answer me under 
five weeks,) you will not be surprised at the advent of this 
letter. I had always one impregnable position, which 
was, that, however good other places might be, there was 
5 only one in, which we could be born, and which therefore 
possessed a quite peculiar and inalienable virtue. We 
had the fortune, which neither of us have had reason to 
call other than good, to journey together through the 
green, secluded valley of boyhood; together we climbed 

lo the mountain wall which shut in, and looked down upon, 
those Italian plains of early manhood; and, since then, 
we have met sometimes by a well, or broken bread together 
at an oasis in the arid desert of life, as it truly is. With 
this letter I propose to make you my fellow-traveller in 

15 one of those fireside voyages which, as we grow older, we 
make oftener and oftener through our own past. With- 
out leaving your elbow-chair, you shall go back with me 
thirty years, which will bring you among things and 
persons as thoroughly preterite as Romulus or Numa.° 

20 For so rapid are our changes in America that the transition 
from old to new, the shifting from habits and associations 
to others entirely different, is as rapid almost as the passing 
in of one scene and the drawing out of another on the stage. 
And it is this which makes America so interesting to the 

25 philosophic student of history and man. Here, as in a 
theatre, the great problems of anthropology — which in 
the Old World were ages in solving, but which are solved, 
leaving only a dry net result — are compressed, as it were, 
into the entertainment of a few hours. Here we have I 

30 know not how many epochs of history and phases of civili- 
zation contemporary with each other, nay, within five 



EARLIER ESSAYS 9 

minutes of each other, by the electric telegraph. In two 
centuries we have seen rehearsed the dispersion of man from 
a small point over a whole continent; we witness with 
our own eyes the action of those forces which govern the 
great migration of the peoples now historical in Europe ; 5 
we can watch the action and reaction of different races, 
forms of government, and higher or lower civilizations. 
Over there, you have only the dead precipitate, demanding 
tedious analysis ; but here the elements are all in solution, 
and we have only to look to know them all. History, 10 
which every day makes less account of governors and 
more of man, must j5nd here the compendious key to all 
that picture-writing of the Past. Therefore it is, my dear 
Storg, that we Yankees may still esteem our America a 
place worth living in. But calm your apprehensions ; 1 15 
do not propose to drag you with me on such an historical 
circumnavigation of the globe, but only to show you that 
(however needful it may be to go abroad for the study of 
aesthetics) a man who uses the eyes of his heart may find 
here also pretty bits of what may be called the social 20 
picturesque, and little landscapes over which that Indian- 
summer atmosphere of the Past broods as sweetly and 
tenderly as over a Roman ruin. Let us look at the Cam- 
bridge of thirty years since. 

The seat of the oldest college in America, it had, of 25 
course, some of that cloistered quiet which characterizes 
all university towns. Even now delicately-thoughtful 
A. H. C.° tells me that he finds in its intellectual atmos- 
phere a repose which recalls that of grand old Oxford. 
But, underlying this, it had an idiosyncrasy of its own. 30 
Boston was not yet a city, and Cambridge was still a coun- 



10 EARLIER ESSAYS 

try village, with its own habits and traditions, not yet 
feeling too strongly the force of suburban gravitation. 
Approaching it from the west by what was then called 
the New Road (it is called so no longer, for we change our 
5 names whenever we can, to the great detriment of all 
historical association), you would pause on the brow of 
Symonds' Hill to enjoy a view singularly soothing and 
placid. In front of you lay the town, tufted with elms, 
lindens, and horse-chestnuts, which had seen Massa- 

lo chusetts a colony, and were fortunately unable to emigrate 
with the Tories° by whom, or by whose fathers, they were 
planted. Over it rose the noisy belfry of the College, the 
square, brown tower of the church, and the slim, yellow 
spire of the parish meeting-house, by no means ungraceful, 

IS and then an invariable characteristic of New England 
religious architecture. On your right, the Charles slipped 
smoothly through green and purple salt-meadows, 
darkened, here and there, with the blossoming black- 
grass as with a stranded cloud-shadow. Over these 

20 marshes, level as water, but without its glare, and with 
softer and more soothing gradations of perspective, the 
eye was carried to a horizon of softly-rounded hills. To 
your left hand, upon the Old Road, you saw some half- 
dozen dignified old houses of the colonial time, all com- 

25 fortably fronting southward. If it were early June, the 
rows of horse-chestnuts along the fronts of these houses 
showed, through every crevice of their dark heap of foliage, 
and on the end of every drooping hmb, a cone of pearly 
flowers, while the hill behind was white or rosy with the 

30 crowding blooms of various fruit-trees. There is no 
sound, unless a horseman clatters over the loose planks 



EARLIER ESSAYS 11 

of the bridge, while his antipodal shadow glides silently 
over the mirrored bridge below, or unless, 

"0 winged rapture, feathered soul of spring, 
BUthe voice of woods, fields, waters, all in one. 
Pipe blown through by the warm, mild breath of June s 
Shepherding her white flocks of woolly clouds. 
The bobolink has come, and climbs the wind 
With rippling wings that quiver not for flight. 
But only joy, or, yielding to its will. 
Runs down, a brook of laughter, through the air." lo 

Such was the charmingly rural picture which he who, 
thirty years ago, went eastward over Symonds' Hill had 
given him for nothing, to hang in the Gahery of Memory. 
But we are a city now, and Common Councils° have yet 
no notion of the truth (learned long ago by many a Euro- 15 
pean hamlet) that picturesqueness adds to the actual 
money value of a town. To save a few dollars in gravel, 
they have cut a kind of dry ditch through the hill, where 
you suffocate with dust in summer, or flounder through 
waistdeep snow-drifts in winter, with no prospect but the 20 
crumbUng earth-walls on either side. The landscape was 
carried away cart-load by cart-load, and, dumped down 
on the roads, forms a part of that unfathomable pudding, 
which has, I fear, driven many a teamster and pedestrian 
to the use of phrases not commonly found in Enghsh 25 
dictionaries. 

We called it 'Hhe Village" then (I speak of Old Cam- 
bridge), and it was essentially an Enghsh village, quiet, 
unspeculative, without enterprise, sufficing to itself, and 
only showing such differences from the original type as 30 
the public school and the system of town government 



12 EARLIER ESSAYS 

might superinduce. A few houses, chiefly old, stood 
around the bare Common, with ample elbow-room, and 
old women, capped and spectacled, still peered through 
the same windows from which they had watched Lord 

5 Percy's^ artillery rumble by to Lexington, or caught a 
gUmpse of the handsome Virginia General^ who had come 
to wield our homespun Saxon chivalry. People were still 
Uving who regretted the late unhappy separation from the 
mother island, who had seen no gentry since the Vassalls° 

lo went, and who thought that Boston had ill kept the day 
of her patron saint, Botolph,° on the 17th of June, 1775. 
The hooks were to be seen from which had swung the 
hammocks of Burgoyne's° captive redcoats. If memory 
does not deceive me, women still washed clothes in the 

15 town spring, clear as that of Bandusia.° One coach 
sufficed for all the travel to the metropolis. Commence- 
ment had not ceased to be the great hoUday of the Puritan 
Commonwealth, and a fitting one it was, — the festival 
of Santa Scholastica,° whose triumphal path one may 

2o conceive strewn with leaves of spelhng-book instead of 
bay. The students (scholars they were called then) wore 
their sober uniform, not ostentatiously distinctive or capa- 
ble of rousing democratic envy, and the old lines of caste 
were blurred rather than rubbed out, as servitor was 

25 softened into beneficiary. The Spanish king was sure 
that the gesticulating student was either mad or reading 
Don Quixote, ° and if, in those days, you met a youth 
swinging his arms and talking to himself, you might con- 
clude that he was either a lunatic or one who was to ap- 

30 pear in a ''part'^ at the next Commencement. A favorite 
place for the rehearsal of these orations was the retired 



EARLIER ESSAYS 13 

amphitheatre of the Gravel-pit, perched unregarded on 
whose dizzy edge, I have heard many a burst of plusquam 
Ciceronian^ eloquence, and (often repeated) the regular 
saluto vos, pr(Estantissim(B° &c., which every year (with a 
glance at the gallery) causes a flutter among the fans in- 5 
nocent of Latin, and dehghts to applauses of conscious 
superiority the youth almost as innocent as they. It is 
curious, by the way, to note how plainly one can feel the 
pulse of self in the plaudits of an audience. At a political 
meeting, if the enthusiasm of the Heges hang fire, it may 10 
be exploded at once by an allusion to their intelHgence or 
patriotism ; and at a literary festival, the first Latin quota- 
tion draws the first applause, the clapping of hands being 
intended as a tribute to our own famiharity with that 
sonorous tongue, and not at all as an approval of the 15 
particular sentiment conveyed in it. For if the orator 
should say, "Well has Tacitus remarked, Americani omnes 
quddam vi naturce furcd dignissimi/'° it would be all the 
same. But the Gravel-pit was patient, if irresponsive ; nor 
did the declaimer always fail to bring down the house, bits 20 
of loosened earth falHng now and then from the precipitous 
walls, their cohesion perhaps overcome by the vibrations 
of the voice, and happily satirizing the effect of most 
popular discourses, which prevail rather with the earthy 
than the spiritual part of the hearer. Was it possible for 25 
us in those days to conceive of a greater potentate than 
the President of the University, in his square doctor's 
cap, that still filially recalled Oxford and Cambridge? If 
there was a doubt, it was suggested only by the Governor, 
and even by him on artillery-election days alone, superbly 30 
martial with epaulets and buckskin breeches, and bestrid- 



14 EARLIER ESSAYS 

ing the war-horse, promoted to that solemn duty for his 
tameness and steady habits. 

Thirty years ago, the town had indeed a character. 
Railways and omnibuses had not rolled flat all Uttle social 

5 prominences and pecuharities, making every man as much 
a citizen everywhere as at home. No Charlestown boy 
could come to our annual festival without fighting to 
avenge a certain traditional porcine imputation against 
the inhabitants of that historic locality, and to which 

lo our youth gave vent in fanciful imitations of the dialect 
of the sty, or derisive shouts of ''Charlestown hogs!" 
The penny newspaper had not yet silenced the tripod of 
the barber, oracle of news. Everybody knew everybody, 
and all about everybody, and village wit, whose high 

15 'change was around the httle market-house in the town 
square, had labelled every more marked individuaUty 
with nicknames that clung like burs. Tilings were estab- 
Hshed then, and men did not run through all the figures 
on the dial of society so swiftly as now, when hurry and 

20 competition seem to have quite unhung the modulating 
pendulum of steady thrift and competent training. Some 
slow-minded persons even followed their father's trade, 
— a humihating spectacle, rarer every day. We had our 
estabUshed loafers, topers, proverb-mongers, barber, 

25 parson, nay, postmaster, whose tenure was for life. The 
great pohtical engine did not then come down at regular 
quadrennial intervals, like a nail-cutting machine, to make 
all official fives of a standard length, and to generate lazy 
and intriguing ^expectancy. Life flowed in recognized 

30 channels, narrower perhaps, but with all the more individu- 
ality and force. 



EARLIER ESSA08 . 15 

There was but one white-and-yellow-washer, whose 
own cottage, fresh-gleaming every June through grape- 
vine and creeper, was his only sign and advertisement. 
He was said to possess a secret, which died with him Uke 
that of Luca della Robbia,° and certainly conceived alls 
colors but white and yellow to savor of savagery, civiHzing 
the stems of his trees annually with Hquid hme, and 
meditating how to extend that candent baptism even to 
the leaves. His pie-plants (the best in town), compulsory 
monastics, blanched under barrels, each in his Uttle her- lo 
mitage, a vegetable Certosa.° His fowls, his ducks, his 
geese, could not show so much as a gray feather among 
them, and he would have given a year's earnings for a white 
peacock. The flowers which decked his Httle door-yard 
were whitest China-asters and goldenest sunflowers, which 15 
last, backshding from their traditional Parsee° faith, used 
to puzzle us urchins not a little by staring brazenly every 
way except towards the sun. Celery, too, he raised, whose 
virtue is its paleness, and the silvery onion, and turnip, 
which, though outwardly conforming to the green heresies 20 
of summer, nourish a purer faith subterraneously, like 
early Christians in the catacombs. In an obscure corner 
grew the sanguine beet, tolerated only for its usefulness in 
allaying the asperities of Saturday's salt-fish. He loved 
winter better than summer, because Nature then played 25 
the whitewasher, and challenged with her snows the scarce 
inferior purity of his overalls and neck-cloth. I fancy 
that he never rightly hked Commencement, for bringing 
so many black coats together. He founded no school. 
Others might essay his art, and were allowed to try their 30 
prentice hands on fences and the Uke coarse subjects, but 



16 EARLIER ESSAYS 

the ceiling of every housewife waited on the leisure of 
Newman (ic/inetAmon° the students called him for his diminu- 
tiveness), nor would consent to other brush than his. 
There was also but one brewer, — Lewis, who made the 
5 village beer, both spruce and ginger, a grave and amiable 
Ethiopian, making a discount always to the boys, and 
wisely, for they were his chiefest patrons. He wheeled 
his whole stock in a white-roofed handcart, on whose front 
a sign-board presented at either end an insurrectionary 

lo bottle; yet insurgent after no mad GaUic° fashion, but 
soberly and Saxonly° discharging itself into the restraining 
formulary of a tumbler, symbolic of orderly prescription. 
The artist had struggled manfully with the difficulties of 
his subject, but had not succeeded so well that we did not 

15 often debate in which of the twin bottles Spruce was typi- 
fied, and in which Ginger. We always beheved that 
Lewis mentally distinguished between them, but by some 
pecuUarity occult to exoteric eyes. This ambulatory 
chapel of the Bacchus° that gives the colic, but not ine- 

2obriates, only appeared at the Commencement hoHdays, 
and the lad who bought of Lewis laid out his money 
well, getting respect as well as beer, three sirs to every 
glass, — ''Beer, sir? yes, sir: spruce or ginger, sir?" I 
can yet recall the innocent pride with which I walked 

25 away after that somewhat risky ceremony, (for a bottle 
sometimes blew up,) dilated not alone with carbonic 
acid gas, but with the more ethereal fixed air of that 
titular flattery. Nor was Lewis proud. When he tried 
his fortunes in the capital on Election days, and stood 

30 amid a row of rival venders ' in the very flood of cus- 
tom, he never forgot his small fellow-citizens, but wel- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 17 

corned them with an assuring smile, and served them with 
the first. 

The barber's shop was a museum, scarce second to the 
larger one of Greenwood in the metropohs. The boy who 
was to be chpped there was always accompanied to the 5 
sacrifice by troops of friends, who thus inspected the 
curiosities gratis ° While the watchful eye of R. wandered 
to keep in check these rather unscrupulous explorers, the 
unpausing shears would sometimes overstep the boun- 
daries of strict tonsorial prescription, and make a notch 10 
through which the phrenological developments could be 
distinctly seen. As Michael Angelo's° design was modified 
by the shape of liis block, so R., rigid in artistic proprieties, 
would contrive to give an appearance of design to this 
aberration, by maldng it the key-note to his work, and 15 
reducing the whole head to an appearance of premature 
baldness. What a charming place it was, — how full of 
wonder and delight ! The sunny little room, fronting 
southwest upon the Common, rang with canaries and 
Java sparrows, nor were the familiar notes of robin, thrush, 20 
and boboHnk wanting. A large white cockatoo harangued 
vaguely, at intervals, in what we believed (on R.'s au- 
thority) to be the Hottentot° language. He had an 
unveracious air, but what inventions of former grandeur 
he was indulging in, what sweet South- African Argos° he 25 
was remembering, what tropical heats and giant trees by 
unconjectured rivers, known only to the wallowing hippo- 
potamus, we could only guess at. The walls were covered 
with curious old Dutch prints, beaks of albatross and 
penguin, and whales' teeth fantastically engraved. There 30 
was Frederick the Great, ° with head drooped plottingly, 
c 



18 EARLIER ESSAYS 

and keen side-long glance from under the three-cornered 
hat. There hung Bonaparte, ° too, the long-haired, hag- 
gard general of Italy, his eyes sombre with prefigured 
destiny ; and there was his island grave ; — the dream 
5 and the fulfilment. Good store of sea-fights there was 
also ; above all, Paul Jones in the Bonhomme Richard :° 
the smoke rolling courteously to leeward, that we might 
see him deahng thunderous wreck to the two hostile vessels, 
each twice as large as his own, and the reahty of the scene 

lo corroborated by streaks of red paint leaping from the 
mouth of every gun. Suspended over the fireplace, with 
the curling-tongs, were an Indian bow and arrows, and in 
the corners of the room stood New Zealand paddles and 
war-clubs, quaintly carved. The model of a ship in glass 

15 we variously estimated to be worth from a hundred to a 
thousand doUars, R. rather favoring the higher valuation, 
though never distinctly committing himself. Among these 
wonders, the only suspicious one was an Indian toma- 
hawk, which had too much the peaceful look of a shingHng- 

20 hatchet. Did any rarity enter the town, it gravitated 
naturally to these walls, to the very nail that waited to 
receive it, and where, the day after its accession, it seemed 
to have hung a Ufetime. We always had a theory that 
R. was immensely rich, (how could he possess so much and 

25 be otherwise ?) and that he pursued his calling from an 
amiable eccentricity. He was a conscientious artist, and 
never submitted it to the choice of his victim whether he 
would be perfumed or not. Faithfully was the bottle 
shaken and the odoriferous mixture rubbed in, a fact red- 

30 olent to the whole school-room in the afternoon. Some- 
times the persuasive tonsor would impress one of the at- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 19 

tendant volunteers, and reduce his poll to shoe-brush 
crispness, at cost of the reluctant ninepence hoarded for 
Fresh Pond, and the next half-hoUday. So purely in- 
digenous was our population then, that R. had a certain 
exotic charm, a kind of game flavor, by being a Dutchman. 5 

Shall the two groceries want their vates sacer° where E. 
& W. L° goods and country prodooce were sold with an 
energy mitigated by the quiet genius of the place, and 
where strings of urchins waited, each with cent in hand, 
}0Y the unweighed dates (thus giving an ordinary business 10 
transaction all the excitement of a lottery), and buying, not 
only that clojdng sweetness, but a dream also of Egypt, 
and palm-trees, and Arabs, in which vision a print of the 
Pyramids in our geography tyrannized like that taller 
thought of Cowper's? 15 

At one of these the unwearied students used to ply a 
joke handed down from class to class. Enter A, and asks 
gravely, ''Have you any sour apples. Deacon?" 

''Well, no, I haven't any just now that are exactly sour ; 
but there's the bell-flower apple, and folks that Hke a sour 20 
apple generally hke that." {Exit A.) 

Enter B. "Have you any sweet apples. Deacon?" 

"Well, no, I haven't any just now that are exactly 
sweet; but there's the bell-flower apple, and folks that 
Uke a sweet apple generally hke that." {Exit B.) 25 

There is not even a tradition of any one's ever having 
turned the wary Deacon's flank, and his Laodicean° 
apples persisted to the end, neither one thing nor another. 
Or shall the two town-constables be forgotten, in whom the 
law stood worthily and amply embodied, fit either of them 30 
to fill the uniform of an Enghsh beadle? Grim and silent 



20 EARLIER ESSAYS 

as Ninevite° statues they stood on each side of the meeting- 
house door at Commencement, propped by long staves of 
blue and red, on which the Indian with bow and arrow, 
and the mailed arm with the sword, hinted at the invisible 
5 sovereignty of the state ready to reinforce them, as 

''For Achilles' portrait stood a spear 
Grasped in an armed hand." 

Stalwart and rubicund men they were, second only, if 
second, to S., champion of the county, and not incapable 

lo of genial unbendings when the fasces were laid aside. One 
of them still sur\ives in octogenarian vigor, the Herodotus° 
of village and college legend, and may it be long ere he 
depart, to carry with liim the pattern of a courtesy, now, 
alas ! old-fashioned, but which might profitably make 

15 part of the instruction of our youth among the other hu- 
manities ! Long may R. M.° be spared to us, so genial, 
so courtly, the last man among us who will ever know how 
to Uft a hat with the nice graduation of social distinction ! 
Something of a Jeremiah° now, he bewails the decUne of 

20 our manners. ^'My children," he says, ''say, 'Yes sir,' 
and 'No sir'; my grand-children, 'Yes' and 'No'; and I 
am every day expecting to hear ' D — n your eyes ! ' for an 
answer when I ask a service of my great-grandchildren. 
Why, sir, I can remember when more respect was paid to 

25 Governor Hancock's" lackey at Commencement, than the 
Governor and all his suite get now." M. is one of those 
invaluable men who remember your grandfather, and 
value you accordingly. 

In those days the population was almost wholly with- 

30 out foreign admixture. Two Scotch gardeners there were, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 21 

— Rule, whose daughter (gHmpsed perhaps at church, or 
possibly the mere Miss Harris of fancy) the students nick- 
named Anarchy or Miss Rule, — and later Fraser, whom 
whiskey subhmed into a poet, full of bloody histories of 
the Forty-twa, and showing an imaginary French bullet, 5 
sometimes in one leg, sometimes in the other, and some- 
times, toward nightfall, in both. With this claim to mih- 
tary distinction he adroitly contrived to mingle another 
to a natural one, asserting double teeth all round his jaws, 
and, having thus created two sets of doubts, silenced both 10 
at once by a single demonstration, displaying the grinders 
to the confusion of the infidel. 

The old court-house stood then upon the square. It has 
shrunk back out of sight now, and students box and fence 
where Parsons once laid down the law, and Ames and 15 
Dexter° showed their skill in the fence of argument. Times 
have changed, and manners, since Cliief Justice Dana° 
(father of Richard the First, and grandfather of Richard 
the Second) caused to be arrested for contempt of court a 
butcher who had come in without a coat to witness the 20 
administration of his country's laws, and who thus had 
his curiosity exemplarily gratified. Times have changed 
also since the cellar beneath it was tenanted by the twin- 
brothers Snow. Oyster men were they indeed, silent in 
their subterranean burrow, and taking the ebbs and flows 25 
of custom with bivalvian serenity. Careless of the months 
with an R° in them, the maxim of Snow (for we knew 
them but as a unit) was, ''When 'ysters are good, they 
air good; and when they ain't, they isnH.'' Grecian F. 
(may his shadow never be less !) tells this, his great laugh 30 
expected all the while from deep vaults of chest, and then 



22 EARLIER ESSAYS 

coming in at the close, hearty, contagious, mounting with 
the measured tread of a jovial but stately butler who brings 
ancientest good-fellowship from exhaustless bins, and 
enough, without other sauce, to give a flavor of stalled 
ox to a dinner of herbs. Let me preserve here an antici- 
patory elegy upon the Snows written years ago by some 
nameless college rhymer. 

DIFFUGERE NIVES** 

Here lies, or lie, — decide the question, you, 

If they were two in one or one in two, — 

P. & S. Snow, whose memory shall not fade, 

Castor and Pollux of the oyster-trade : 

Hatched from one egg, at once the shell they burst, 

(The last, perhaps, a P. S. to the first,) 

So homoousian both in look and soul, 

So undiscernibly a single whole. 

That whether P. was S., or S. was P., 

Surpassed all skill in etymology ; 

One kept the shop at once, and all we know 

Is that together they were the Great Snow, 

A snow not deep, yet with a crust so thick 

It never melted to the son of Tick ; 

Perpetual ? nay, our region was too low, 

Too warm, too southern, for perpetual Snow ; 

Still, like fair Leda's sons, to whom 'twas given 

To take their turns in Hades and in Heaven, 

Our new Dioscuri would bravely share 

The cellar's darkness and the upper air ; 

Twice every year would each the shades escape, 

And, like a sea-bird, seek the wave-washed Cape, 

Where (Rumor voiced) one spouse sufficed for both ; 

No bigamist, for she upon her oath, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 23 

Unskilled in letters, could not make a guess 

At any difference twixt P. and S. — 

A thing not marvellous, since Fame agrees 

They were as little different as two peas, 

And she, like Paris, when his Helen laid 5 

Her hand 'mid snows from Ida's top conveyed 

To cool their wine of Chios, could not know, 

Between those rival candors, which was Snow. 

Whiche'er behind the counter chanced to be 

Oped oysters oft, his clam-shells seldom he ; lo 

If e'er he laughed, 'twas with no loud guffaw. 

The fun warmed through him with a gradual thaw ; 

The nicer shades of wit were not his gift. 

Nor was it hard to sound Snow's simple drift ; 

His were plain jokes, that many a time before i5 

Had set his tarry messmates in a roar. 

When floundering cod beslimed the deck's wet planks. 

The humorous specie of Newfoundland banks. 

But Snow is gone, and, let us hope, sleeps well, 

Buried (his last breath asked it) in a shell ; 20 

Fate with an oyster-knife sawed off his thread, 

And planted him upon his latest bed. 

Him on the Stygian shore my fancy sees 

Noting choice shoals for oyster colonies, 

Or, at a board stuck full of ghostly forks, 25 

Opening for practice visionary Yorks. 

And whither he has gone, may we too go, — 

Since no hot place were fit for keeping Snow ! 

Jam satis nivis° 

Cambridge has long had its port, but the greater part 
of its maritime trade was, thirty years ago, intrusted to a 30 



24 EARLIER ESSAYS 

single Argo,° the sloop Harvard, which belonged to the 
College, and made annual voyages to that vague Orient 
known as Down East, bringing back the wood that, in 
those days, gave to winter life at Harvard a crackle and a 
5 cheerfulness, for the loss of which the greater warmth of 
anthracite hardly compensates. New England Hfe, to be 
genuine, must have in it some sentiment of the sea, — it 
was this instinct that printed the device of the pine-tree 
on the old money and the old flag, — and these periodic 

lo ventures of the sloop Harvard made the old Viking fibre 
vibrate in the hearts of all the village boys. What a vista 
of mystery and adventure did her sailing open to us ! 
With what pride did we hail her return! She was our 
scholiast upon Robinson Crusoe and the mutiny of the 

15 Bounty. Her captain still lords it over our memories, 
the greatest sailor that ever sailed the seas, and we should 
not look at Sir John Franldin° liimself with such admiring 
interest as that with which we enhaloed some larger boy 
who had made a voyage in her, and had come back with- 

20 out braces (gallowses we called them) to his trousers, and 
squirting ostentatiously the juice of that weed which still 
gave him Uttle private returns of something very like sea- 
sickness. All our shingle vessels were shaped and rigged 
by her, who was our glass of naval fashion and our mould of 

25 aquatic form. We had a secret and wild delight in behev- 
ing that she carried a gun, and imagined her sending grape 
and canister among the treacherous savages of Oldtown. 
Inspired by her w^ere those first essays at navigation on the 
Winthrop duck-j^ond, of the plucky boy who was after- 

30 wards to serve two famous years before the mast. The 
greater part of what is now Cambridgeport was then (in 



EARLIER ESSAYS 25 

the native dialect) a huckleberry pastur. Woods were not 
wanting on its outskirts, of pine, and oak, and maple, and 
the rarer tupelo with downward limbs. Its veins did not 
draw their blood from the quiet old heart of the village, 
but it had a distinct being of its own, and was rather as 
great caravansary than a suburb. The chief feature of 
the place was its inns, of which there were five, with vast 
barns and court-yards, which the railroad was to make , 
as silent and deserted as the palaces of Nimroud.° Great 
white-topped wagons, each drawn by double files of six or lo 
eight horses, with its dusty bucket swinging from the 
hinder axle, and its grim bull-dog trotting silent under- 
neath, or in midsumfner panting on the lofty perch beside 
the driver, (how elevated tliither baffled conjecture,) 
brought all the wares and products of the country to their is 
mart and seaport in Boston. These filled the inn-yards, or 
were ranged side by side under broad-roofed sheds, and 
far into the night the mirth of their lusty drivers clamored 
from the red-curtained bar-room, while the single lantern, 
swaying to and fro in the black cavern of the stables, made 20 
a Rembrandt° of the group of ostlers and horses below. 
There were, beside the taverns, some huge square stores 
where groceries were sold, some houses, by whom or why 
inhabited was to us boys a problem, and, on the edge of 
the marsh, a currier's shop, where, at high tide, on a float- 25 
ing platform, men were always beating skins in a way to 
remind one of Don Quixote's fulHng-mills. Nor did these 
make all the Port. As there is always a Coming Man 
who never comes, so there is a man who always comes (it 
may be only a quarter of an hour) too early. This man 30 
so far as the Port is concerned, was Rufus Davenport. 



26 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Looking at the marshy flats of Cambridge, and consider- 
ing their nearness to Boston, he resolved that there should 
grow up a suburban Venice. Accordingly, the marshes 
were bought, canals were dug, ample for the commerce 
5 of both Indies, and four or five rows of brick houses were 
built to meet the first wants of the wading settlers who 
were expected to rush in — whence ? This singular 
question had never occurred to the enthusiastic projector. 
There are laws which govern human migrations quite 

lo beyond the control of the speculator, as many a man 
with desirable building-lots has discovered to his cost. 
Why mortal men will pay more for a chess-board square 
in that swamp, than for an acre on the breezy upland close 
by, who shall say? And again, why, having shown such 

15 a passion for your swamp, they are so coy of mine, who 
shall say? Not certainly any one who, hke Davenport, 
had got up too early for his generation. If we could only 
carry that slow, imperturbable old clock of Opportunity, ° 
that never strikes a second too soon or too late, in our fobs, 

20 and push the hands forward as we can those of our watches ! 
With a foreseeing economy of space which now seems ludi- 
crous, the roofs of this forlorn-hope of houses were made 
flat, that the swarming population might have where to 
dry their clothes. But A. U. C.° 30 showed the same 

25 view as A. U. C. 1, — onlj^ that the brick blocks looked as 
if they had been struck by a malaria. The dull weed 
upholstered the decaying wharves, and the only freight 
that heaped them was the kelp and eel-grass left by higher 
floods. Instead of a Venice, behold a Torzelo!° The 

30 unfortunate projector took to the last refuge of the un- 
happy — book-making, and bored the reluctant public 



EARLIER ESSAYS 27 

with what he called a right-aim Testament, prefaced by 
a recommendation from General Jackson, who perhaps, 
from its title, took it for some treatise on ball-practice. 

But even Cambridgeport, my dear Storg, did not want 
associations poetic and venerable. The stranger who s 
took the '' Hourly "° at Old Cambridge, if he were a phys- 
iognomist and student of character, might perhaps have 
had his curiosity excited by a person who mounted the 
coach at the Port. So refined was his whole appearance, 
so fastidiously neat his apparel, — but with a neatness lo 
that seemed less the result of care and plan, than a some- 
thing as proper to the man as whiteness to the lily, — 
that you would have at once classed him with those individ- 
uals, rarer than great captains and almost as rare as great 
poets, whom Nature sends into the world to fill the arduous is 
office of Gentleman. Were you ever emperor of that 
Barataria° which under your peaceful sceptre would 
present, of course, a model of government, this remark- 
able person should be Duke of Biens6ance° and Master 
of Ceremonies. There are some men whom destiny has 20 
endowed with the faculty of external neatness, whose 
clothes are repellent of dust and mud, whose unwithering 
white neck-cloths persevere to the day's end, unappeas- 
ably seeing the sun go down upon their starch, and whose 
linen makes you fancy them heirs in the maternal line to 25 
the instincts of all the washerwomen from Eve downward. 
There are others whose inward natures possess this fatal 
cleanness, incapable of moral dirt spot. You are not long 
in discovering that the stranger combines in himself both 
these properties. A nimhus° of hair, fine as an infant's, 30 
and early white, showing refinement of organization and 



28 EARLIER ESSAYS 

the predominance of the spiritual over the physical, un- 
dulated and floated around a face that seemed Uke pale 
flame, and over which the flitting shades of expression 
chased each other, fugitive and gleaming as waves upon 
5 a field of rye. It was a countenance that, without any 
beauty of feature, was very beautiful. I have said that 
it looked Uke pale flame, and can find no other words for 
the impression it gave. Here was a man all soul, whose 
body seemed a lump of finest clay, whose service was to 

lo feed with magic oils, rare and fragrant, that wavering fire 
which hovered over it. You, who are an adept in such mat- 
ters, would have detected in the eyes that artist-look which 
seems to see pictures ever in the air, and which, if it fall on 
you makes you feel as if all the world were a gallery, and 

15 yourself the rather indifferent Portrait of a Gentleman 
hung therein. As the stranger brushes by you in ahght- 
ing, you detect a single incongruity, — a smell of dead 
tobacco-smoke. You ask his name, and the answer is, 
''Mr. Allston."° 

20 ''Mr. AUston!" and you resolve to note down at once 
in your diary every look, every gesture, every word of 
the great painter? Not in the least. You have the true 
Anglo-Norman indifference, and most likely never think 
of him again till you hear that one of his pictures 

25 has sold for a great price, and then contrive to let your 
grandchildren know twice a week that you met him once 
in a coach, and that he said, "Excuse me, sir," in a very 
Titianesque° manner, when he stumbled over your toes 
in getting out. Hitherto Boswell° is quite as unique as 

30 Shakespeare. The country-gentleman, journeying up to 
London, inquires of Mistress Davenant at the Oxford inn 



EARLIER ESSAYS 29 

the name of his pleasant companion of the night before. 
''Master Shakespeare, an't please your worship." And 
the Justice, ° not without a sense of the unbending, says, 
''Truly, a merry and conceited gentleman!" It is lucky 
for the peace of great men that the world seldom finds s 
out contemporaneously who its great men are, or, perhaps, 
that each man esteems himself the fortunate he who shall 
draw the lot of memory from the helmet of the future. 
Had the eyes of some Stratford burgess been achromatic 
telescopes, capable of a perspective of two hundred years ! lo 
But, even then, would not his record have been fuller of 
says Fs than says he's? Nevertheless, it is curious to 
consider from what infinitely varied points of view we 
might form our estimate of a great man's character, when 
we remember that he had his points of contact with the is 
butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, as well as 
with the ingenious A, the subHme B, and the Right Hon- 
orable C. If it be true that no man ever clean forgets 
everything, and that the act of drowning (as is asserted) 
forthwith brightens up all those o'er-rusted impressions, 20 
would it not be a curious experiment, if, after a remark- 
able person's death, the pubHc, eager for minutest partic- 
ulars, should gather together all who had ever been brought 
into relations with him, and, submerging them to the hair's- 
breadth hitherward of the drowning-point, subject them 25 
to strict cross-examination by the Humane Society, as 
soon as they become conscious between the resuscitating 
blankets? All of us probably have brushed against des- 
tiny in the street, have shaken hands with it, fallen asleep 
with it in railway carriages, and knocked heads with it in 30 
some one or other of its yet unrecognized incarnations. 



30 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Will it seem like presenting a tract to a colporteur ° my 
dear Storg, if I say a word or two about an artist to you 
over there in Italy? Be patient, and leave your button 
in my grasp yet a little longer. A person whose opinion 

5 is worth having once said to me, that, however one's 
notions might be modified by going to Europe, one 
always came back with a higher esteem for Allston. Cer- 
tainly he is thus far the greatest English painter of his- 
torical subjects. And only consider how strong must 

lohave been the artistic bias in him, to have made him a 
painter at all under the circumstances. There were no 
traditions of art, so necessary for guidance and inspira- 
tion. Blackburn, Smibert, Copley, Trumbull, Stuart,° 
— it was, after all, but a Brentford° sceptre which their 

IS heirs could aspire to, and theirs were not names to con- 
jure with, like those from which Fame, as through a silver 
trumpet, had blown for three centuries. Copley and 
Stuart were both remarkable men; but the one painted 
like an inspired silk-mercer, and the other seems to have 

20 mixed his colors with the claret of which he and liis genera- 
tion were so fond. And what could a successful artist 
hope for, at that time, beyond the mere wages of his 
work? His picture would hang in cramped back-parlors, 
between deadly cross-fires of lights, sure of the garret or 

25 the auction-room erelong, in a country where the nomad 
population carry no household gods with them but their 
five wits and their ten fingers. As a race, we care noth- 
ing about Art ; but the Puritan and the Quaker are the 
only EngHshmen jvho have had pluck enough to confess 

30 it. If it were surprising that Allston should have become 
a painter at all, how almost miraculous that he should 



EARLIER ESSAYS 31 

have been a great and original one ! We call him original 
deUberately, because, though his school is essentially 
ItaUan, it is of less consequence where a man buys his 
tools, than what use he makes of them. Enough EngUsh 
artists went to Italy and came back painting history in a 5 
very Anglo-Saxon manner, and creating a school as melo- 
dramatic as the French, without its perfection in techni- 
caUties. But Allston carried thither a nature open on 
the southern side, and brought it back so steeped in rich 
Italian sunshine that the east winds (whether physical or lo 
intellectual) of Boston and the dusts of Cambridgeport 
assailed it in vain. To that bare wooden studio one 
might go to breathe Venetian air, and, better yet, the very 
spirit wherein the elder brothers of Art labored, ethe- 
realized by metaphysical speculation, and subhmed by is 
reUgious fervor. The beautiful old man! Here was 
genius with no volcanic explosions (the mechanic result 
of vulgar gunpowder often), but lovely as a Lapland 
night ; here was fame, not sought after nor worn in any 
cheap French fashion as a ribbon at the button-hole, but 20 
so gentle, so retiring, that it seemed no more than an as- 
sured and emboldened modesty; here was ambition, 
undebased by rivalry and incapable of the sidelong look; 
and all these massed and harmonized together into a purity 
and depth of character, into a tone, which made the daily 25 
life of the man the greatest masterpiece of the artist. 

But let us go back to the Old Town. Thirty j^ears 
since, the Muster and the CornwaUis° allowed some bent 
to those natural instincts which Puritanism scotched, but 
not killed. The CornwaUis had entered upon the estates of 30 
the old Guy-Fa wkes° procession, confiscated by the Revo- 



32 EARLIER ESSAYS 

lution. It was a masquerade, in which that grave and 
suppressed humor, of which the Yankees are fuller than 
other people, burst through all restraints, and disported 
itself in all the wildest vagaries of fun. Commonly the 

5 Yankee in his pleasures suspects the presence of Public 
Opinion as a detective, and accordingly is apt to pinion 
liimself in his Sunday suit. It is a curious commentary 
on the artificiality of our lives, that men must be disguised 
and masked before they will venture into the obscurer 

lo corners of their individuahty, and display the true features 
of their nature. One remarked it in the Carnival, and one 
especially noted it here among a race naturally self-re- 
strained ; for Silas and Ezra and Jonas were not only dis- 
guised as Redcoats, Continentals, and Indians, but not 

15 unfrequently disguised in drink also. It is a question 
whether the Lyceum,° where the public is obliged to com- 
prehend all vagrom men, supplies the place of the old 
popular amusements. A hundred and fifty years ago, 
Cotton Mather° bewails the carnal attractions of the 

20 tavern and the training-field, and tells of an old Indian 
who imperfectly understood the English tongue, but 
desperately mastered enough of it (when under sentence 
of death) to express a desire for instant hemp rather than 
hsten to any more ghostly consolations. Puritanism — 

25 1 am perfectly aware how great a debt we owe it — tried 
over again the old experiment of dri\dng out nature with a 
pitchfork, and had the usual success. It was like a ship 
inwardly on fire, whose hatches must be kept hermetically 
battened down ; . for the admittance of an ounce of 

30 Heaven's own natural air would explode it utterly. Morals 
can never be safely embodied in the constable. PoHshed, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 33 

cultivated, fascinating Mephistopheles ! ° it is for the 
ungovernable breakings-away of the soul from unnatural 
compressions that thou waitest with a deprecatory smile. 
Then it is that thou offerest thy gentlemanly arm to un- 
guarded youth for a pleasant stroll through the City of s 
Destruction, ° and, as a special favor, introducest him to 
the bewitcliing Miss Circe, ° and to that model of the 
hospitable old English gentleman, Mr. Comus.° 

But the Muster and the Cornwallis were not pecuUar 
to Cambridge. Commencement-day was. Saint Peda- lo 
gogus was a worthy whose feast could be celebrated by 
men who quarrelled with minced-pies, and blasphemed 
custard through the nose. The holiday preserved all the 
features of an Enghsh fair. Stations were marked out 
beforehand by the town constables, and distinguished by 15 
numbered stakes. These were assigned to the different 
venders of small wares and exhibiters of rarities, whose 
canvas booths, beginning at the market-place, sometimes 
half encircled the Common with their jovial embrace. 
Now all the Jehoiada-boxes° in town were forced to give 20 
up their rattling deposits of specie, if not through the 
legitimate orifice, then to the brute force of the hammer. 
For liither were come all the wonders of the world, making 
the Arabian Nights seem possible, and which we beheld 
for half price ; not without mingled emotions, — pleasure 25 
at the economy, and shame at not paying the more manly 
fee. Here the mummy unveiled her withered charms, — 
a more marvellous Ninon, ° still attractive in her three- 
thousandth year. Here were the Siamese twins°; ah! 
if all such forced and unnatural unions were made a show 30 
of ! Here were the flying horses (their supernatural effect 



34 EARLIER ESSAYS 

injured — like that of some poems — by the visibihty of 
the man who turned the crank), on which, as we tilted at 
the ring, we felt our shoulders tingle with the accolade ° 
and heard the chnk of golden spurs at our heels. Are the 
5 reaUties of hfe ever worth half so much as its cheats ? 
And are there any feasts half so filhng at the price as those 
Barmacide° ones spread for us by Imagination? Hither 
came the Canadian giant, surreptitiously seen, without 
price, as he ahghted, in broad day, (giants were always 

lo foolish,) at the tavern. Hither came the great horse 
Columbus, with shoes two inches thick, and more wisely 
introduced by night. In the trough of the town-pump 
might be seen the mermaid, its poor monkey's head care- 
fully sustained above water, to keep it from drowning. 

15 There were dwarfs, also, who danced and sang, and many 
a proprietor regretted the transaudient properties of 
canvas, which allowed the frugal pubhc to share in the 
melody without entering the booth. Is it a slander of 
J. H.,° who reports that he once saw a deacon, eminent for 

20 psalmody, Ungering near one of those vocal tents, and, 
with an assumed air of abstraction, furtively drinking in, 
with unhabitual ears, a song, not secular merely, but with 
a dash of Hbertinism? The New England proverb says, 
''AH deacons are good, but — there's odds in deacons." 

25 On these days Snow became superterranean, and had a 
stand in the square, and Lewis temperately contended 
with the stronger fascinations of egg-pop. But space 
would fail me to make a catalogue of everything. No 
doubt, Wisdom iilso, as usual, had her quiet booth at the 

30 corner of some street, without entrance-fee, and, even at 
that rate, got never a customer the whole day long. For 



EARLIER ESSAYS 35 

the bankrupt afternoon there were peep-shows, at a cent 
each. 

But all these shows and their showmen are as clean gone 
now as those of Csesar and Timour° and Napoleon, for 
which the world paid dearer. They are utterly gone out, s 
not leaving so much as a snuff behind, — as little thought 
of now as that John Robins, who was once so considerable 
a phenomenon as to be esteemed the last great Antichrist 
and son of perdition by the entire sect of Muggletonians.° 
Were Commencement what it used to be, I should be lo 
tempted to take a booth myself, and try an experiment 
recommended by a satirist of some merit, whose works 
were long ago dead and (I fear) deedeed° to boot. 

"Menenius, thou who fain wouldst know how calmly men 

can pass 15 

Those biting portraits of themselves, disguised as fox or 

ass, — 
Go borrow coin enough to buy a full-length psyche-glass, 
Engage a rather darkish room in some well-sought 

position, 20 

And let the town break out with bills, so much per head 

admission, — 
Great natural curiosity ! ! The biggest living 

FOOL ! ! 

Arrange your mirror cleverly, before it set a stool, 25 

Admit the public one by one, place each upon the seat. 
Draw up the curtain, let him look his fill, and then re- 
treat. 
Smith mounts and takes a thorough view, then comes 

serenely down, 30 

Goes home and tells his wife the thing is curiously like 
Brown ; 



36 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Brown goes and stares, and tells his wife the wonder's 

core and pith 
Is that 'tis just the counterpart of that conceited Smith. 
Life calls us all to such a show : Menenius, trust in me, 
5 While thou to see thy neighbor smil'st, he does the same 

for thee." 

My dear Storg, would you come to my show, and, in- 
stead of looking in my glass, insist on taking your money's 
worth in staring at the exhibitor ? 

lo Not least among the curiosities which the day brought 
together were some of the graduates, posthumous men, 
as it were, disentombed from country parishes and dis- 
trict-schools, but perennial also, in whom freshly survived 
all the college jokes, and who had no intelUgence later 

15 than their Senior year. These had gathered to eat the 
College dinner, and to get the Triennial Catalogue (their 
libro d'oro)° referred to oftener than any volume but the 
Concordance. Aspiring men they were, certainly, but in 
a right unworldly way ; this scholastic festival opening a 

20 peaceful path to the ambition which might else have dev- 
astated mankind with Prolusions on the Pentateuch, ° or 
Genealogies of the Dormouse Family. For since in the 
academic processions the classes are ranked in the order 
of their graduation, and he has the best chance at the 

25 dinner who has the fewest teeth to eat it with, so, by 
degrees, there springs up a competition in longevity, — 
the prize contended for being the oldest surviving gradu- 
ateship. This is an office, it is true, without emolument, 
but having certain advantages, nevertheless. The in- 

3ocumbent, if he come to Commencement, is a prodigious 
lion, and commonly gets a paragraph in the newspapers 



EARLIER ESSAYS 37 

once a year with the (fiftieth) last survivor of Washington's 
Life-Guard. If a clergyman, he is expected to ask a bless- 
ing and return thanks at the dinner, a function which he 
performs with centenarian longanimity, as if he reckoned 
the ordinary life of man to be fivescore years, and that a s 
grace must be long to reach so far away as heaven. Ac- 
cordingly, this silent race is watched, on the course of the 
Catalogue, with an interest worthy of Newmarket; and 
as star after star rises in the galaxy of death, till one name 
is left alone, an oasis of life in the stellar desert, it grows lo 
solemn. The natural feehng is reversed, and it is the 
sohtary life that becomes sad and monitory, the Styhtes° 
there on the lonely top of his century-pillar, who has 
heard the passing-bell of youth, love, friendship, hope, 
— of everything but immitigable eld. is 

Dr. K.° was President of the University then, a man 
of genius, but of genius that evaded utilization, — a great 
water-power, but without rapids, and flowing with too 
smooth and gentle a current to be set turning wheels and 
whirling spindles. His was not that restless genius of 20 
which the man seems to be merely the representative, and 
which wreaks itself in literature or poHtics, but of that 
milder sort, quite as genuine, and perhaps of more contem- 
poraneous value, which is the man, permeating the whole 
Hfe with placid force, and giving to word, look, and gesture 25 
a meaning only justifiable by our belief in a reserved 
power of latent reinforcement. The man of talents pos- 
sesses them like so many tools, does his job with them, 
and there an end ; but the man of genius is possessed by 
it, and it makes him into a book or a Hfe according to its 30 
whim. Talent takes the existing moulds, and makes its 



38 EARLIER ESSAYS 

castings, better or worse, of richer or baser metal, accord- 
ing to knack and opportunity ; but genius is always shap- 
ing new ones, and runs the man in them, so that there is 
always that human feel in its results which gives us a 
5 kindred thrill. What it will make, we can only conjecture, 
contented always with knowing the infinite balance of 
possibility against wliich it can draw at pleasure. Have 
you ever seen a man whose check would be honored for a 
milHon pay liis toll of one cent? and has not that bit of 

lo copper, no bigger than your own, and piled with it by the 
careless toll-man, given you a tingling vision of what 
golden bridges he could pass, — into what Elysian regions 
of taste and enjoyment and culture, barred to the rest of 
us? Sometliing like it is the impression made by such 

15 characters as K.'s on those who come in contact with them. 

There was that in the soft and rounded (I had almost 

said melting) outlines of his face which reminded one of 

Chaucer. The head had a placid yet dignified droop like 

his. He was an anachronism, fitter to have been Abbot 

20 of Fountains® or Bishop Gohas,° courtier and priest, 
humorist and lord spiritual, all in one, than for the master- 
ship of a provincial college, which combined, with its 
purely scholastic functions, those of accountant and chief 
of poUce. For keeping books he was incompetent (unless 

25 it were those he borrowed), and the only disci phne he 
exercised was by the unobtrusive pressure of a gentleman- 
liness which rendered insubordination to him impossible. 
But the world always judges a man (and rightly enough, 
too) by his Httle faults, which he shows a hundred times 

30 a day, rather than by his great virtues, which he discloses 
perhaps but once in a Hfetime, and to a single person, — 



EARLIER ESSAYS 39 

nay, in proportion as they are rarer, and he is nobler, is 
shyer of letting their existence be known at all. He was 
one of those misplaced persons whose misfortune it is that 
their Uves overlap two distinct eras, and are already so 
impregnated with one that they can never be in healthy 5 
sympathy with the other. Born when the New England 
clergy were still an establishment and an aristocracy, and 
when office was almost always for life, and often hereditary, 
he Uved to be thrown upon a time when avocations of all 
colors might be shuffled together in the life of one man, 10 
like a pack of cards, so that you could not prophesy that 
he who was ordained to-day might not accept a colonelcy 
of fihbusters to-morrow. Such temperaments as his attach 
themselves, like barnacles, to what seems permanent ; but 
presently the good ship Progress weighs anchor, and 15 
whirls them away from drowsy tropic inlets to arctic 
waters of unnatural ice. To such crustaceous natures, 
created to cHng upon the immemorial rock amid softest 
mosses, comes the bustling Nineteenth Century and says, 
''Come, come, bestir yourself and be practical! get out 20 
of that old shell of yours forthwith!" Alas! to get out 
of the shell is to die ! 

One of the old travellers in South America tells of fishes 
that built their nests in trees {piscium et summa hcesit genus 
ulmo)° and gives a print of the mother fish upon her nest, 25 
while her mate mounts perpendicularly to her without aid 
of legs or wings. Life shows plenty of such incongruities 
between a man's place and his nature, (not so easily got 
over as by the traveller's undoubting engraver,) and one 
cannot help fancying that K. was an instance in point. 30 
He never encountered, one would say, the attraction 



40 EARLIER ESSAYS 

/ 

proper to draw out his native force. Certainly, few men 
who impressed others so strongly, and of whom so many 
good things are remembered, left less behind them to justify 
contemporary estimates. He printed nothing, and was, 
5 perhaps, one of those the electric sparkles of whose brains, 
discharged naturally and healthily in conversation, refused 
to pass through the nonconducting medium of the ink 
stand. His ana° would make a delightful collection. 
One or two of his official ones will be in place here. Hear- 

loing that Porter's flip (which was exemplary) had too 
great an attraction for the collegians, he resolved to in- 
vestigate the matter liimself. Accordingly, entering the 
old inn one day, he called for a mug of it, and, having drunk 
it, said, ''And so, Mr. Porter, the young gentlemen come 

15 to drink your flip, do they?" ''Yes, sir, — sometimes." 
"Ah, well, I should think they would. Good day, Mr. 
Porter," and departed, saying notliing more ; for he always 
wisely allowed for the existence of a certain amount of 
human nature in ingenuous youth. At another time the 

20 '' Harvard Washington" asked leave to go into Boston to 
a collation which had been offered them. "Certainly, 
young gentlemen," said the President, "but have you 
engaged any one to bring home your muskets?" — the 
College being responsible for these weapons, which belonged 

25 to the State. Again, when a student came with a physi- 
cian's certificate, and asked leave of absence, K. granted it 

at once, and then added, "By the way, Mr. , persons 

interested in the relation which exists between states of 
the atmosphere^ and health have noticed a curious fact 

30 in regard to the chmate of Cambridge, especially within 
the College limits, — the very small number of deaths in 



EARLIER ESSAYS 41 

proportion to the cases of dangerous illness." This is 
told of Judge W.,° himself a wit, and capable of enjojang 
the humorous delicacy of the reproof. 

Shall I take Brahmin Alcott's° favorite word, and call 
him a daemonic man ? No, the Latin genius is quite old- s 
fashioned enough for me, means the same thing, and its 
derivative geniality expresses, moreover, the base of I^.'s 
being. How he suggested cloistered repose, and quad- 
rangles mossy with centurial associations ! How easy he 
was, and how without creak was every movement of his lo 
mind ! This life was good enough for him, and the next 
not too good. The gentleman-like pervaded even his 
prayers. His were not the manners of a man of the world, 
nor of a man of the other world either; but both met in 
him to balance each other in a beautiful equihbrium. 15 
Praying, he leaned forward upon the pulpit-cushion as 
for conversation, and seemed to feel himself (without irrev- 
erence) on terms of friendly, but courteous, familiarity 
with Heaven. The expression of his face was that of 
tranquil contentment, and he appeared less to be sup- 20 
phcating expected mercies than thankful for those already 
found, — as if he were saying the gratias° in the refectory 
of the Abbey of Theleme.° Under liim flourished the 
Harvard Washington Corps, whose gyrating banner, in- 
scribed Tarn Marti quam Mercurio° {atqui magis Lyceo 25 
should have been added), on the evening of training-days, 
was an accurate dynamometer of Willard's punch or 
Porter's flip. It was they who, after being royally enter- 
tained by a maiden lady of the town, entered in their 
orderly book a vote that Miss Blank was a gentleman. 30 
I see them now, returning from the imminent deadly 



42 EARLIER ESSAYS 

breach of the law of Rechab,° unable to form other than 
the serpentine Une of beauty, while their officers, brotherly 
rather then imperious, instead of reprimanding, tearfully 
embraced the more eccentric wanderers from military 
5 precision. Under him the Med. Facs.° took their equal 
place among the learned societies of Europe, numbering 
among their grateful honorary members Alexander, Em- 
peror of all the Russians, who (if College legends may be 
trusted) sent them in return for their diploma a gift of 

lo medals confiscated by the authorities. Under him the 
College fire-engine was vigilant and active in suppressing 
any tendency to spontaneous combustion among the Fresh- 
men, or rushed wildly to imaginary conflagrations, gen- 
erally in a direction where punch was to be had. All these 

IS useful conductors for the natural electricity of youth, 
dispersing it or turning it harmlessly into the earth, are 
taken away now, — wisely or not, is questionable. 

An academic town, in whose atmosphere there is always 
something antiseptic, seems naturally to draw to itself 

20 certain varieties and to preserve certain humors (in the 
Ben Jonsonian° sense) of character, — men who came not 
to study so much as to be studied. At the head-quarters 

of Washington once, and now of the Muses, Uved C ° 

but before the date of these recollections. Here for seven 

25 years (as the law was then) he made his house Ms castle, 
sunning himself in liis elbow-chair at the front-door, on 
that seventh day, secure from every arrest but Death's. 
Here long survived him his turbaned widow, studious 
only of Spinoza,*^ and refusing to molest the canker-worms 

30 that annually disleaved her elms, because we were all 
vermicular ahke. She had been a famous beauty once. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 43 

but the canker years had left her leafless, too ; and I used 
to wonder, as I saw her sitting always alone at her accus- 
tomed window, whether she were ever \asited by the re- 
proachful shade of him who (in spite of RosaHnd) died 
broken-hearted for her in her radiant youth. s 

And this reminds me of J. F., who, also crossed in love, 
allowed no mortal eye to behold his face for many years. 
The eremitic instinct is not peculiar to the Thebais,° as 
many a New England callage can testify ; and it is worthy 
of consideration that the Romish Church has not forgotten lo 
this among her other points of intimate contact with 
human nature. F. became purely vespertinal, never 
stirring abroad till after dark. He occupied two rooms, 
migrating from one to the other, as the necessities of house- 
wifery demanded, thus shunning all sight of womankind, 15 
and being practically more solitary in his dual apartment 
than Montaigne's° Dean of St. Hilaire in his single one. 
When it was requisite that he should put liis signature to 
any legal instrument, (for he was an anchorite of ample 
means,) he wrapped liimself in a blanket, allowing nothing 20 
to be seen but the hand which acted as scribe. What im- 
pressed us boys more than anything else was the rumor 
that he had suffered his beard to grow, — such an anti- 
Sheffieldism° being almost unheard of in those days, and 
the peculiar ornament of man being associated in our minds 25 
with nothing more recent than the patriarchs and apostles, 
whose effigies we were obliged to solace ourselves with 
weekly in the Family Bible. He came out of his oyster- 
hood at last, and I knew him well, a kind-hearted man, who 
gave annual sleigh-rides to the town-paupers, and supplied 30 
the poor children with school-books. His favorite topic 



44 EARLIER ESSAYS 

of conversation was Eternity, and, like many other worthy 
persons, he used to fancy that meaning was an affair of 
aggregation, and that he doubled the intensity of what 
he said by the sole aid of the multiph cation-table. '^Eter- 
5 nity !" he used to say, ''it is not a day; it is not a year; 
it is not a hundred years ; it is not a thousand years ; it is 
not a miUion years; no, sir," (the sir being thrown in to 
recall wandering attention,) ''it is not ten milHon years!" 
and so on, his enthusiasm becoming a mere frenzy when 

lo he got among his sextilUons, till I sometimes wished he had 
continued in retirement. He used to sit at the open win- 
dow during thunder-storms, and had a Grecian feeHng 
about death by lightning. In a certain sense he had his 
desire, for he died suddenly, — not by fire from heaven, 

IS but by the red flash of apoplexy, leaving his whole estate 
to charitable uses. 

If K. were out of place as President, that was not P.° 
as Greek Professor. Who that ever saw him can forget 
him, in his old age, Uke a lusty winter, frosty but kindly, 

20 with great silver spectacles of the heroic period, such as 
scarce twelve noses of these degenerate days could bear? 
He was a natural ceHbate, not dwelhng "Hke the fly in the 
heart of the apple," but hke a lonely bee rather, abscond- 
ing himself in Hymettian° flowers, incapable of matri- 

25 mony as a solitary palm-tree. There was, to be sure, 
a tradition of youthful disappointment, and a touching 
story which L. told me perhaps confirms it. When 

Mrs. died, a carriage with bhnds drawn followed 

the funeral train ^t some distance, and, when the coffin 

30 had been lowered into the grave, drove hastily away to 
escape that saddest of earthly sounds, the first rattle of 



EARLIER ESSAYS 45 

earth upon the hd. It was afterward known that the 
carriage held a single mourner, — our grim and unde- 
monstrative Professor. Yet I cannot bring myself to 
suppose him susceptible to any tender passion after that 
single lapse in the immaturity of reason. He might have 5 
joined the Abderites° in singing their mad chorus from the 
Andromeda ;° but it would have been in deference to the 
language merely, and with a silent protest against the 
sentiment. I fancy him arranging liis scrupulous toilet, 
not for Amaryllis or Nesera," but, like Machiavelli,° for the 10 
society of his beloved classics. His ears had needed no 
prophylactic wax to pass the Sirens' isle ;° nay, he would 
have kept them the wider open, studious of the dialect in 
which they sang, and perhaps triumphantly detecting the 
iEolic digamma° in their lay. A thoroughly single man, 15 
single-minded, single-hearted, buttoning over his single 
heart a single-breasted surtout, and wearing always a hat 
of a single fashion, — did he in secret regard the dual 
number of liis favorite language as a weakness ? The son 
of an officer of distinction in the Revolutionary War, he 20 
mounted the pulpit with the erect port of a soldier, and 
carried his cane more in the fashion of a weapon than a 
staff, but with the point lowered, in token of surrender to 
the peaceful proprieties of his calling. Yet sometimes 
the martial instincts would burst the cerements of black 25 
coat and clerical neckcloth, as once, when the students 
had got into a fight upon the training-field, and the Hcen- 
tious soldiery, furious with rum, had driven them at point 
of bayonet to the College gates, and even threatened to 
lift their arms against the Muses' bower. Then, Hkeao 
Major Goffe at Deerfield, suddenly appeared the gray- 



46 EARLIER ESSAYS 

haired P., all his father resurgent in him, and shouted: 
" Now, my lads, stand your ground, you're in the right 
now! Don't let one of them set foot within the College 
grounds!" Thus he allowed arms to get the better of 
5 the togaf but raised it, like the Prophet's breeches, into 
a banner, and carefully ushered resistance with a preamble 
of infringed right. Fidelity was liis strong characteristic, 
and burned equably in him through a hfe of eighty-three 
years. He drilled himself till inflexible habit stood sentinel 

lo before all those postern-weaknesses which temperament 
leaves unbolted to temptation. A lover of the scholar's 
herb, yet loving freedom more, and knowing that the 
animal appetites ever hold one hand behind them for Satan 
to drop a bribe in, he would never have two cigars in his 

IS house at once, but walked every day to the shop to fetch 
liis single diurnal solace. Nor would he trust himself with 
two on Saturdays, preferring (since he could not violate 
the Sabbath even by that infinitesimal traffic) to depend 
on Providential ravens, which were seldom wanting in 

20 the shape of some black-coated friend who knew his need, 
and honored the scruple that occasioned it. He was 
faithful, also, to his old hats, in which appeared the con- 
stant service of the antique world, ° and which he preserved 
forever, piled like a black pagoda under his dressing-table. 

25 No scarecrow was ever the residuary legatee of his beavers, 
though one of them in any of the neighboring peach- 
orchards would have been sovereign against an attack of 
Freshmen. He wore them all in turn, getting through all 
in the course of the year, like the sun through the signs of 

30 the zodiac, modulating them according to seasons and ce- 
lestial phenomena, so that never was spider-web or chick- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 47 

weed so sensitive a weather-gauge as they. Nor did his 
political party find him less loyal. Taking all the tickets, 
he would seat himself apart, and carefully compare them 
with the Hst of regular nominations as printed in his Daily 
Advertiser, before he dropped his ballot in the box. In 5 
less ambitious moments, it almost seems to me that I 
would rather have had that slow, conscientious vote of 
P/s alone, than to have been chosen Alderman of the 
Ward! 

If you had walked to what was then Sweet Auburn by 10 
the pleasant Old Road, on some June morning thirty 
years ago, you would very likely have met two other 
characteristic persons, both phantasmagoric now, and 
belonging to the past. Fifty years earlier, the scarlet- 
coated, rapiered figures of Vassall, Lechmere, Oliver, and 15 
Brattle° creaked up and down there on red-heeled shoes, 
Ufting the ceremonious three-cornered hat, and offering 
the fugacious hospitalities of the snuff-box. They are all 
shadowy aHke now, not one of your Etruscan Lucumos° 
or Roman Consuls more so, my dear Storg. First is W., 20 
his queue slender and tapering, hke the tail of a violet crab, 
held out horizontally by the high collar of his shepherd's- 
gray overcoat, whose style was of the latest when he 
studied at Leyden in his hot youth. The age of cheap 
clothes sees no more of those faithful old garments, as 25 
proper to their wearers and as distinctive as the barks of 
trees, and by long use interpenetrated with their very 
nature. Nor do we see so many Humors (still in the old 
sense) now that every man's soul belongs to the PubHc, 
as when social distinctions were more marked, and men 30 
felt that their personahties were their castles, in which 



48 EARLIER ESSAYS 

they could intrench themselves against the world. Now- 
a-days men are shy of letting their true selves be seen, as if 
in some former hfe they had committed a crime, and were 
all the time afraid of discovery and arrest in this. For- 
5 merly they used to insist on your giving the wall to their 
pecuHarities, and you may still find examples of it in the 
parson or the doctor of retired villages. One of W.'s 
oddities was toucliing. A little brook used to run across 
the street, and the sidewalk was carried over it by a broad 

lo stone. Of course there is no brook now. What use did 
that little glimpse of a ripple serve, where the children 
used to launch their chip fleets? W., in going over this 
stone, which gave a hollow resonance to the tread, had a 
trick of striking upon it three times with his cane, and 

IS muttering, ''Tom, Tom, Tom!" I used to think he was 
only mimicking with his voice the sound of the blows, and 
possibly it was that sound which suggested his thought, 
for he was remembering a favorite nephew, prematurely 
dead. Perhaps Tom had sailed his boats there; perhaps 

20 the reverberation under the old man's foot hinted at the 
hollowness of hfe ; perhaps the fleeting eddies of the water 
brought to mind the fugaces annos° W., hke P., wore 
amazing spectacles, fit to transmit no smaller image than 
the page of mightiest folios of Dioscorides° or Hercules de 

25 Saxonia,° and rising full-disked upon the beholder hke 
those prodigies of two moons at once, portending change 
to monarchs. The great collar disallowing any indepen- 
dent rotation of the head, I remember he used to turn his 
whole person in otder to bring their foci to bear upon an 

30 object. One can fancy that terrified Nature would have 
jdelded up her secrets at once, without cross-examination, 
at their first glare. Through them he had gazed fondly 



EARLIER ESSAYS 49 

into the great mare's-nest of Junius, ° publishing his ob- 
servations upon the eggs found therein in a tall octavo. 
It was he who introduced vaccination to this Western 
World. Malicious persons disputing his claim to this 
distinction, he published this advertisement: ''Lost, as 
gold snuff-box, with the inscription, 'The Jenner° of the 
Old World to the Jenner of the New.' Whoever shall 

return the same to Dr. shall be suitably rewarded." 

It was never returned. Would the search after it have 
been as fruitless as that of the alchemist after his equally lo 
imaginary gold ? Malicious persons persisted in believing 
the box as visionary as the claim it was meant to buttress 
with a semblance of reality. He used to stop and say 
good morning kindly, and pat the shoulder of the blushing 
school-boy who now, with the fierce snow-storm wildering 15 
without, sits and remembers sadly those old meetings and 
partings in the June sunshine. 

Then there was S.,° whose resounding "Haw, haw, haw ! 
by George!" positively enlarged the income of every 
dweller in Cambridge. In downright, honest good cheer 20 
and good neighborhood, it was worth five hundred a year 
to every one of us. Its jovial thunders cleared the mental 
air of every sulky cloud. Perpetual childhood dwelt in 
him, the childhood of his native Southern France, and its 
fixed air was all the time bubbhng up and sparkling and 25 
winking in his eyes. It seemed as if his placid old face 
were only a mask behind which a merry Cupid had am- 
bushed himself, peeping out all the while, and ready to 
drop it when the play grew tiresome. Every word he 
uttered seemed to be liilarious, no matter what the occa- 30 
sion. If he were sick, and you visited him, if he had met 
with a misfortune, (and there are few men so wise that 



50 EARLIER ESSAYS 

they can look even at the back of a retiring sorrow with 
composure,) it was all one ; his great laugh went off as if 
it were set Uke an alarm-clock, to run down, whether he 
would or no, at a certain nick. Even after an ordinary 
5 Good morning ! (especially if to an old pupil, and in 
French,) the wonderful Haw, haw, haw ! by George ! would 
burst upon you Unexpectedly, like a salute of artillery on 
some holiday which you had forgotten. Everytliing was 
a joke to him, — that the oath of allegiance had been ad- 
10 ministered to Mm by your grandfather, — that he had 
taught Prescott Ms first Spamsh (of wMch he was proud), 
— no matter what. Everything came to Mm marked by 
Nature Right side up, with care, and he kept it so. The 
world to him, as to all of us, was Uke a medal, on the ob- 
is verse of which is stamped the image of Joy, and on the 
reverse that of Care. S. never took the foolish pains to 
look at that other side, even if he knew its existence; 
much less would it have occurred to Mm to turn it into 
view, and insist that Ms friends should look at it with Mm. 
2o Nor was tMs a mere outside good-humor ; its source was 
deeper, in a true Christian kindliness and amenity. Once, 
when he had been knocked down by a tipsily-driven 
sleigh, and was urged to prosecute the offenders, "No, 
no," he said, Ms wounds still fresh, ''young blood! young 
25 blood ! it must have its way ; I was young myself." Was ! 
few men come into life so young as S. went out. He 
landed in Boston (then the front door of America) in '93, 
and, in honor of the ceremony, had his head powdered 
afresh, and put on a suit of court-mourning before- he set 
30 foot on the wharf. My fancy always dressed Mm in that 
violet silk, and Ms soul certainly wore a full court-suit. 
What was there ever like Ms bow? It was as if you had 



EARLIER ESSAYS 51 

received a decoration, and could write yourself gentleman 
from that day forth. His hat rose, regreeting your own, 
and, having sailed through the stately curve of the old 
regime, sank gently back over that placid brain, which 
harbored no thought less white than the powder which 5 
covered it. I have sometimes imagined that there was a 
graduated arc over his head, invisible to other eyes than 
his, by wliich he meted out to each his rightful share of 
castorial consideration. I carry in my memory three ex- 
emplary bows. The first is that of an old beggar, who, 10 
already carrying in his hand a white hat, the gift of benevo- 
lence, took off the black one from his head also, and pro- 
foundly saluted me with both at once, giving me, in return 
for my alms, a dual benediction, puzzling as a nod from 
Janus Bifrons.° The second I received from an old 15 
Cardinal, who was taking his walk just outside the Porta 
San Giovanni° at Rome. I paid him the courtesy due to 
his age and rank. Forthwith rose, first, the Hat ; second, 
the hat of his confessor ; third, that of another priest who 
attended him ; fourth, the fringed cocked-hat of his coach- 20 
man ; fifth and sixth, the ditto, ditto, of his two footmen. 
Here was an investment, indeed; six hundred per cent 
interest on a single bow! The third bow, worthy to be 
noted in one's almanac among the other mirabilia° was 
that of S., in wliich courtesy had mounted to the last round 25 
of her ladder, — and tried to draw it up after her. 

But the genial veteran is gone even while I am writing 
this, and I will play Old Mortality no longer. Wandering 
among these recent graves, my dear friend, we may chance 

upon ; but no, I will not end my sentence. I bid you 30 

heartily farewell ! 



A MOOSEHEAD° JOURNAL 

ADDRESSED TO THE EDELMANN STORG AT THE BAGNI DI 
LUCCA 

Thursday, llth August. — I knew as little yesterday 
of the interior of Maine as the least penetrating person 
knows of the inside of that great social millstone which, 
driven by the river Time, sets imperatively agoing the 

5 several wheels of our individual acti\ities. Born wliile 
Maine was still a province of native Massachusetts, I was as 
much a foreigner to it as yourself, my dear Storg. I had 
seen many lakes, ranging from that of Virgil's Cum2ean° 
to that of Scott's Caledonian Lady°; but Moosehead, 

lowitliin two da.ys of me, had never enjoyed the profit of 
being mirrored in my retina. At the sound of the name, 
no reminiscential atoms (according to Kenelm Digby's° 
Theory of Association, — as good as any) stirred and mar- 
shalled themselves in my brain. The truth is, we think 

isHghtly of Nature's penny shows, and estimate what we 
see by the cost of the ticket. Empedocles° gave his Ufe 
for a pit-entrance to /Etna, and no doubt found his account 
in it. Accordingly, the clean face of Cousin Bull is imaged 
patronizingly in Lake George, and Loch Lomond glasses 

20 the hurried countenance of Jonathan, diving deeper in the 
streams of European association (and coming up drier) 
than any other man. Or is the cause of our not caring to 

62 



EARLIER ESSAYS 53 

see what is equally within the reach of all our neighbors to 
be sought in that aristocratic principle so deeply implanted 
in human nature ? I knew a pauper graduate who always 
borrowed a black coat, and came to eat the Commence- 
ment dinner, — not that it was better than the one which 5 
daily graced the board of the pubHc institution in which 
he hibernated (so to speak) during the other three hundred 
and sixty-four daj^s of the year, save in tliis one particular, 
that none of his eleemosynary fellow-commoners could eat 
it. If there are unhappy men who wish that they were 10 
as the Babe Unborn, there are more who would aspire to 
the lonely distinction of being that other figurative per- 
sonage, the Oldest Inhabitant. You remember the charm- 
ing irresolution of our dear Esthwaite, (Hke Macheath° 
between his two doxies,) di\dded between his theory that 15 
he is under tliirty, and his pride at being the only one of us 
who witnessed the September gale and the rejoicings at 
the Peace ? Nineteen years ago I was walking through the 
Franconia Notch,° and stopped to chat with a hermit, who 
fed with gradual logs the unwearied teeth of a saw-mill. 20 
As the panting steel sht off the slabs of the log, so did the 
less wiUing machine of talk, acquiring a steadier up-and- 
down motion, pare away that outward bark of conversa- 
tion which protects the core, and which, Hke other bark 
has naturally most to do with the weather, the season, and 25 
the heat of the day. At length I asked him the best point 
of view for the Old Man of the Mountain. 

" Dunno, — never see it." 

Too young and too happy either to feel or affect the 
Juvenahan° indifference, I was sincerely astonished, and 1 30 
expressed it. 



54 EARLIER ESSAYS 

The log-compelling man attempted no justification, 
but after a little asked, ''Come from Bawsn?" 

''Yes" (with peninsular pride). 

''Goodie to see in the vycinity o' Bawsn." 
5 "0 yes !" I said, and I thought, — see Boston and die ! 
see the State-Houses, old and new, the caterpillar wooden 
bridges crawling with innumerable legs across the flats of 
Charles ; see the Common, — largest park, doubtless, in 
the world, — with its files of trees planted as if by a drill- 
lo sergeant, and then for your nunc dimittis !° 

" I should like, 'awl, I should Uke to stan on Bunker Hill. 
You've ben there off en, Hkely?" 

"N — o — ^o," unwillingly, seeing the little end of the 
horn in clear vision at the terminus of this Socratic° per- 
15 spective. 

"'Awl, my young frien', you've larned neow thet wut a 
man ki7i see any day for nawtliin', cliildern half price, he 
never doos see. Nawthin' pay, nawthin' vally." 

With this modern instance of a wise saw, I departed, 

20 deeply revolving these things with myself, and convinced 

that, whatever the ratio of population, the average amount 

of human nature to the square mile is the same the world 

over. I thought of it when I saw people upon the Pincian° 

wondering at the Alchemist sun, as if he never burned the 

25 leaden clouds to gold in sight of Charles Street. I thought 

of it when I found eyes first discovering at Mont Blanc 

how beautiful snow was. As I walked on, I said to myself, 

There is one exception, wise hermit, — it is just these 

gratis pictures which the poet puts in his show-box, and 

30 wliich we all gladly pay Wordsworth and the rest for a peep 

at. The divine faculty is to see what everybody can look at. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 65 

While every well-informed man in Europe, from the 
barber down to the diplomatist, has liis view of the Eastern 
Question, why should I not go personally down East and 
see for myself? Why not, hke Tancred,° attempt my own 
solution of the Mystery of the Orient, — doubly mysteri- 5 
ous when you begin the two words with capitals? You 
know my way of doing things, to let them simmer in my 
mind gently for months, and at last do them impromptu° 
in a kind of desperation, driven by the Eumenides° of 
unfulfilled purpose. So, after talldng about Moosehead 10 
till nobody beHeved me capable of going thither, I found 
myself at the Eastern Railway station. The only event of 
the journey hither (I am now at Waterville) was a boy 
hawking exhilaratingly the last great railroad smash, — 
thirteen hves lost, — and no doubt devoutly wishing there is 
had been fifty. Tliis having a mercantile interest in horrors, 
holding stock, as it were, in murder, misfortune, and pesti- 
lence, must have an odd effect on the human mind. The 
birds of ill-omen, at whose sombre flight the rest of the 
world turn pale, are the ravens wliich bring food to this 20 
Httle outcast in the wilderness. If tliis lad give thanks for 
daily bread, it would be curious to inquire what that phrase 
represents to liis understanding. If there ever be a plum 
in it, it is Sin or Death that puts it in. Other details of my 
dreadful ride I will spare you. Suffice it that I arrived here 25 
in safety, — in complexion like an Ethiopian serenader 
half got-up, and so broiled and peppered that I was more 
like a devilled kidney than anything else I can tliink of. 

10 p. M. — The ci\dl landlord and neat chamber at the 
" Elmwood House" were very grateful, and after tea I set 30 
forth to explore the town. It has a good chance of being 



56 EARLIER ESSAYS 

pretty ; but, like most American towns, it is in a hobblede- 
hoy age, growing yet, and one cannot tell what may happen. 
A child with great promise of beauty is often spoiled by its 
second teeth. There is something agreeable in the sense 
5 of completeness which a walled town gives one. It is 
entire, hke a crystal, — a work wliich man has succeeded in 
finishing. I think the human mind pines more or less where 
ever3^tliing is new, and is better for a diet of stale bread. 
The number of Americans who \isit the Old World is be- 

lo ginning to afford matter of speculation to observant Euro- 
peans, and the deep inspirations with which they breathe 
the air of antiquity, as if their mental lungs had been 
starved with too thin an atmosphere. For my own part, 
I never saw a house which I thought old enough to be torn 

IS down. It is too Hke that Scythian° fasliion of knocking old 
people on the head. I cannot help thinking that the inde- 
finable something which we call character is cumulative, — 
that the influence of the same climate, scenery, and asso- 
ciations for several generations is necessary to its gather- 

2oing head, and that the process is disturbed by continual 
change of place. The American is nomadic in religion, in 
ideas, in morals, and leaves his faith and opinions with as 
much indifference as the house in which he was born. 
However, we need not bother : Nature takes care not to 

25 leave out of the great heart of society either of its two 
ventricles of hold-back and go-ahead. 

It seems as if every considerable American town must 
have its one specimen of everytliing, and so there is a 
college in Waterville, the buildings of which are three in 

30 number, of brick, and quite up to the average ugHness 
which seems essential in edifices of this description. Un- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 57 

happily, they do not reach that extreme of ughness where 
it and beauty come together in the clasp of fascination. 
We erect handsomer factories for cottons, woollens, and 
steam-engines, than for doctors, lawyers, and parsons. 
The truth is, that, till our struggle with nature is over, till 5 
this shaggy hemisphere is tamed and subjugated, the work- 
shop will be the college whose degrees will be most valued. 
Moreover, steam has made travel so easy that the great 
university of the world is open to all comers, and the old 
cloister system is faUing astern. Perhaps it is only the 10 
more needed, and, were I rich, I should like to found a few 
lazyships in my Alma Mater as a kind of counterpoise. 
The Anglo-Saxon race has accepted the primal curse as a 
blessing, has deified work, and would not have thanked 
Adam for abstaining from the apple. They would have 15 
dammed the four rivers of Paradise, substituted cotton for 
fig-leaves among the antediluvian populations, and com- 
mended man's first disobedience as a wise measure of 
pohtical economy. But to return to our college. We can- 
not have fine buildings till we are less in a hurry. We 20 
snatch an education Hke a meal at a railroad-station. 
Just in time to make us dyspeptic, the whistle shrieks, and 
we must rush, or lose our places in the great train of fife. 
Yet noble architecture is one element of patriotism, and an 
eminent one of culture, the finer portions of which are 25 
taken in by unconscious absorption through the pores of 
the mind from the surrounding atmosphere. I suppose we 
must wait, for we are a great bivouac as yet rather than a 
nation, — on the march from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
— and pitch tents instead of building houses. Our very 30 
villages seem to be in motion, following westward the be- 



58 EARLIER ESSAYS 

witching music of some Pied Piper of Hamelin.° We still 
feel the great push toward sundown given to the peoples 
somewhere in the gray dawn of history. The cUff-swaUow 
alone of all animated nature emigrates eastward. 

5 Friday, I2th. — The coach leaves Waterville at five 
o'clock in the morning, and one must breakfast in the dark 
at a quarter past four, because a train starts at twenty 
minutes before fi^^e, — the passengers by both convey- 
ances being pastured gregariously. So one must be up at 

lo half past three. The primary geological formations con- 
tain no trace of man, and it seems to me that these eocene 
periods of the day are not fitted for sustaining the human 
forms of Ufe. One of the Fathers held that the sun was 
created to be worshipped at his rising by the Gentiles. 

IS The more reason that Christians (except, perhaps, early 
Christians) should abstain from these heathenish cere- 
monials. As one arri\'ing by an early train is welcomed 
by a drowsy maid with the sleep scarce brushed out of her 
hair, and finds empty grates and polished mahogany, 

20 on whose arid plains the pioneers of breakfast have not 
yet encamped, so a person waked thus unseasonably is 
sent into the world before his faculties are up and dressed 
to serve him. It might have been for this reason that 
my stomach resented for several hours a piece of fried 

25 beefsteak which I forced upon it, or, more properly speak- 
ing, a piece of that leathern conveniency which in these 
regions assumes the name. You will find it as hard to 
beheve, my d^ar Storg, as that quarrel of the Sorbonists,° 
whether one should say ego amaf or no, that the use of the 

30 gridiron is unknown hereabout, and so near a river named 
after St. Lawrence, too ! 



EARLIER ESSAYS 59 

To-day has been the hottest day of the season, yet our 
drive has not been unpleasant. For a considerable dis- 
tance we followed the course of the Sebasticook River, a 
pretty stream with alternations of dark brown pools and 
wine-colored rapids. On each side of the road the lands 
had been cleared, and Httle one-story farm-houses were 
scattered at intervals. But the stumps still held out in 
most of the fields, and the tangled wilderness closed in 
behind, striped here and there \AT.th the sUm white trunks 
of the elm. As yet only the edges of the great forest have lo 
been nibbled awaj^ Sometimes a root-fence stretched up 
its bleaching antlers, like the trophies of a giant hunter. 
Now and then the houses thickened into an unsocial-look- 
ing village, and we drove up to the grocery to leave and take 
a mail-bag, stopping again presently to water the horses at 15 
some palhd httle tavern, whose one red-curtained eye (the 
bar-room) had been put out by the inexorable thrust of 
Maine Law. Had Shenstone° travelled this road, he 
would never have written that famous stanza of his ; had 
Johnson, he would never have quoted it. They are to real 20 
inns as the skull of Yorick° to Ms face. Where these 
villages occurred at a distance from the river, it was diffi- 
cult to account for them. On the river-bank, a saw-mill 
or a tannery served as a logical premise, and saved them 
from total inconsequentiahty. As we trailed along, at the 25 
rate of about four miles an hour, it was discovered that one 
of our mail-bags was missing. */ Guess somebody'll pick 
it up," said the driver coolly ; " 't any rate, likely there's 
nothin' in it." Who knows how long it took some Elam 
D. or Zebulon K. to compose the missive intrusted to that 30 
vagrant bag, and how much longer to persuade Pamela 



60 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Grace or Sophronia Melissa that it had really and truly 
been wiitten ? The discovery of our loss was made by a 
tall man who sat next to me on the top of the coach, 
every one of whose senses seemed to be prosecuting its 
5 several investigation as we went along. Presently, sniffing 
gently, he remarked : " Tears to me's though I smelt 
sunthin'. Ain't the aix het, think?" The driver pulled 
up, and, sure enough, the off fore-wheel was found to be 
smoking. In three minutes he had snatched a rail from 

lo the fence, made a lever, raised the coach, and taken off the 
wheel, bathing the hot axle and box with water from the 
river. It was a pretty spot, and I was not sorry to lie under 
a beech-tree (Tityrus-hke,° meditating over my pipe) and 
watch the operations of the fire-annihilator. I could not 

15 help contrasting the ready helpfulness of our driver, all 
of whose wits were about him, current, and redeemable 
in the specie of action on emergency, with an incident of 
travel in Italy, where, under a somewhat similar stress of 
circumstances, our vetturino° had nothing for it but to dash 

20 his hat on the ground and call on Sant' Antonio, the ItaUan 
Hercules. 

There being four passengers for the Lake, a vehicle 
called a mud-wagon was detailed at Newport for our ac- 
commodation. In this we jolted and rattled along at a 

25 hvelier pace than in the coach. As we got farther north, 
the country (especially the hills) gave evidence of longer 
cultivation. About the thriving town of Dexter we saw 
fine farms and crops. The houses, too, became prettier; 
hop-vines were trained about the doors, and hung their 

30 clustering thyrsi over the open windows. A kind of wild 
rose (called by the country folk the primrose) and asters 



EARLIER ESSAYS 61 

were planted about the door-yards^ and orchards, com- 
monly of natural fruit, added to the pleasant home-look. 
But everywhere we could see that the war between the 
white man and the forest was still fierce, and that it would 
be a long while yet before the axe was buried. The haying 5 
being over, fires blazed or smouldered against the stumps 
in the fields, and the blue smoke widened slowly upward 
through the quiet August atmosphere. It seemed to me 
that I could hear a sigh now and then from the immemorial 
pines, as they stood watching these camp-fires of the in- 10 
exorable invader. Evening set in, and, as we crunched 
and crawled up the long gravelly hills, I sometimes began 
to fancy that Nature had forgotten to make the correspond- 
ing descent on the other side. But erelong we were rushing 
down at full speed ; and, inspired by the dactylic beat of 15 
the horses' hoofs, I essayed to repeat the opening fines of 
Evangeline. At the moment I was beginning, we plunged 
into a hollow, where the soft clay had been overcome by a 
road of unhewn logs. I got through one line to this cor- 
duroj'' accompaniment, somewhat as a country choir 20 
stretches a short metre on the Pro crust ean° rack of a long- 
drawn tune. The result was Hke this : — 

" Thihis ihis thehe fohorest prihihimeheval ; thehe murhur- 
muring pihines hahand thehe hehemlohocks ! " 

At a quarter past eleven, p.m., we reached Greenville, 25 
(a little ^dllage which looks as if it had dripped down from 
the hills, and settled in the hollow at the foot of the lake,) 
having accompfished seventy-two miles in eighteen hours. 
The tavern was totally extinguished. The driver rapped 
upon the bar-room window, and after a while we saw 30 



62 EARLIER ESSAYS 

heat-lightnings of unsuccessful matches followed by a low 
grumble of vocal thunder, which I am afraid took the form 
of imprecation. Presently there was a great success, and 
the steady blur of lighted tallow succeeded the fugitive 
5 brilHance of the pine. A hostler fumbled the door open, and 
stood staring at but not seeing us, with the sleep sticking 
out all over him. We at last contrived to launch him, 
more Hke an insensible missile than an intelligent or intelli- 
gible being, at the slumbering landlord, who came out 

lo wide-awake, and welcomed us as so many half-dollars, — ■ 
twenty-five cents each for bed, ditto breakfast. Shen- 
stone, Shenstone !° The only roost was in the garret, 
which had been made into a single room, and contained 
eleven double-beds, ranged along the walls. It was like 

15 sleeping in a hospital. However, nice customs curtsy to 
eighteen-hour rides, and we slept. 

Saturday, ISth. — Tliis morning I performed my toilet in 
the bar-room, where there was an abundant supply of 
water, and a halo of interested spectators. After a suffi- 

20 cient breakfast, we embarked on the httle steamer Moose- 
head, and were soon throbbing up the lake. The boat, it 
appeared, had been chartered by a party, this not being 
one of her regular trips. Accordingly we were mulcted 
in twice the usual fee, the philosophy of which I could not 

25 understand. However, it always comes easier to us to 
comprehend why we receive than why we pay. I d-are say 
it was quite clear to the captain. There were three or 
four clearings on the western shore; but after passing 
these, the lake became wholly primeval, and looked to us 

30 as it did to the first adventurous Frenchman who paddled 
across it. Sometimes a cleared point would be pink with 



EARLIER ESSAYS 63 

the blossoming willow-herb, ''a cheap and excellent sub- 
stitute" for heather, and, like all such, not quite so good 
as the real thing. On all sides rose deep-blue mountains, 
of remarkably graceful outhne, and more fortunate than 
common in their names. There were the Big and Little 5 
Squaw, the Spencer and Lily-bay Mountains. It was 
debated whether we saw Katahdin or not, (perhaps more 
useful as an intellectual exercise than the assured vision 
would have been,) and presently Mount Kineo rose ab- 
ruptly before us, in shape not unUke the island of Capri. ° 10 
Mountains are called great natural features, and why they 
should not retain their names long enough for them also 
to become naturalized, it is hard to say. Why should 
every new surveyor rechristen them with the gubernatorial 
patronymics of the current year? They are geological 15 
noses, and, as they are aquiUne or pug, indicate terrestrial 
idiosyncrasies. A cosmical physiognomist, after a glance 
at them, will draw no vague inference as to the character 
of the country. The word nose is no better than any other 
word ; but since the organ has got that name, it is conven- 20 
lent to keep it. Suppose we had to label our facial prom- 
inences every season with the name of our provincial 
governor, how should we Uke it? If the old names have 
no other meaning, they have that of age; and, after all 
meaning is a plant of slow growth, as every reader of Shake- 25 
speare knows. It is well enough to call mountains after 
their discoverers, for Nature has a knack of throwing 
doublets, and somehow contrives it that discoverers have 
good names. Pike's Peak is a curious hit in this way. 
But these surveyors' names have no natural stick in them. 30 
They remind one of the epithets of poet-asters, which peel 



64 EARLIER ESSAYS 

off like a badly gummed postage-stamp. The oarly settlers 
did better, and there is something pleasant in the sound of 
Graylock, Saddleback, and Great Haystack. 

"I love those names 
5 Wherewith the exiled farmer tames 

Nature down to companionship 

With his old world's more homely mood, 
And strives the shaggy wild to clip 
With arms of familiar habitude." 

10 It is possible that Mount Marcy and Mount Hitchcock 
may sound as well hereafter as Hellespont and Pelopon- 
nesus, ° when the heroes, their namesakes, have become 
mjrthic with antiquity. But that is to look forward a great 
way. I am no fanatic for Indian nomenclature, — the 

15 name of my native district having been Pigsgusset, — 
but let us at least agree on names for ten years. 

There were a couple of loggers on board, in red flannel 
shirts, and with rifles. They were the first I had seen, and 
I was interested in their appearance. They were tall, 

2o well-knit men, straight as Robin Hood, and with a quiet, 
self-contained look that pleased me. I fell into talk with 
one of them. 

*'Is there a good market for the farmers here in the 
woods?" I asked. 

25 ''None better. They can sell what they raise at their 
doors, and for the best of prices. The lumberers want it 
all, and more." 

''It must be^a lonely hfe. But then we all have to pay 
more or less life for a living." 

30 " Well, it is lonesome. Shouldn't Hke it. After all, the 
best crop a man can raise is a good crop of society. We 



EARLIER ESSAYS &5 

don't live none too long, anyhow ; and without society a 
fellow couldn't tell more'n half the time whether he was 
alive or not." 

This speech gave me a ghmpse into the hfe of the lum- 
berers' camp. It was plain that there a man would soon 5 
find out how much ahve he was, — there he could learn to 
estimate his quality, weighed in the nicest self-adjusting 
balance. The best arm at the axe or the paddle, the surest 
eye for a road or for the weak point of a jam, the steadiest 
foot upon the squirming log, the most persuasive voice to 10 
the tugging oxen, — all these things are rapidly settled, 
and so an aristocracy is evolved from this democracy of the 
woods, for good old mother Nature speaks Saxon still, and 
with her either Canning or Kenning °means King. 

A string of five loons was flying back and forth in long, 15 
irregular zigzags, uttering at intervals their wild, tremulous 
cry, which always seems far away, like the last faint pulse of 
echo dying among the hills, and which is one of those few 
sounds that, instead of disturbing solitude, only deepen 
and confirm it. On our inland ponds they are usually seen 20 
in pairs, and I asked if it were common to meet five together. 
My question was answered by a queer-looking old man, 
chiefly remarkable for a pair of enormous cowhide boots, 
over which large blue trousers of frocking strove in vain to 
crowd themselves. 25 

'^Walil, 'tain't ushil," said he, ^'and it's called a sign o' 
rain comin', that is." 

''Do you think it will rain?" 

With the caution of a veteran auspex° he evaded a direct 
reply, *'Wahl, they du say it's a sign o' rain comin'," 30 
said he. 



66 EARLIER ESSAYS 

I discovered afterward that my interlocutor was Uncle 
Zeb. Formerly, every New England town had its repre- 
sentative uncle. He was not a pawnbroker, but some 
elderly man who, for want of more defined family ties, 

5 had gradually assumed this avuncular relation to the com- 
munity, inhabiting the border-land between respectabiUty 
and the almshouse, with no regular calling, but worldng 
at haying, wood-sawing, whitewashing, associated with the 
demise of pigs and the ailments of cattle, and possessing as 

lo much patriotism as might be implied in a devoted attach- 
ment to " New England" — with a good deal of sugar and 
very Uttle water in it. Uncle Zeb was a good specimen of 
this palaeozoic class, extinct among us for the most part, 
or surviving, hke the Dodo,° in the Botany Bays of society.' 

15 He was ready to contribute (somewhat muddily) to all 
general conversation ; but his chief topics were his boots 
and the 'Roostick° war. Upon the lowlands and levels of 
ordinary palaver he would make rapid and unlooked-for 
incursions ; but, provision faihng, he would retreat to these 

20 two fastnesses, whence it was impossible to dislodge him, 
and to which he knew innumerable passes and short cuts 
quite beyond the conjecture of common woodcraft. His 
mind opened naturally to these two subjects, like a book to 
some favorite passage. As the ear accustoms itself to any 

25 sound recurring regularly, such as the ticking of a clock, 
and, without a conscious effort of attention, takes no 
impression from it whatever, so does the mind find a natural 
safeguard against this pendulum species of discourse, and 
performs its duties in the parliament by an unconscious re- 

30 flex action, like the beating of the heart or the movement of 
the lungs. If talk seemed to be flagging, our Uncle would 



EARLIER ESSAYS 67 

put the heel of one boot upon the toe of the other, to bring it 
within point-blank range, and say, "Wahl, I stump the 
Devil himself to make that 'ere boot hurt my foot," leaving 
us in doubt whether it were the virtue of the foot or its 
case wMch set at naught the wiles of the adversary ; or, 5 
looking up suddenly, he would exclaim, ''Wahl, we eat 
some beans to the 'Roostick war, I tell you!''' When his 
poor old clay was wet with gin, his thoughts and words 
acquired a rank flavor from it, as from too strong a fertihzer. 
At such times, too, his fancy commonly reverted to a pre- 10 
historic period of his Hfe, when he singly had settled all the 
surrounding country, subdued the Injuns and other wild 
animals, and named all the towns. 

We talked of the winter-camps and the Ufe there. '' The 
best thing is," said our Uncle, '' to hear a log squeal thru 15 
the snow. Git a good, cole, frosty mornin', in February say, 
an' take an' hitch the critters on to a log that'll scale seven 
thousan', an' it'll squeal as potty as an'thin' you ever 
hearn, I tell you J' 

A pause. 20 

''Lessee, — seen Cal Hutchins lately?" 

''No." 

"Seems to me's though I hedn't seen Cal sence the 
'Roostick war. Wahl," &c., &c. 

Another pause. 25 

"To look at them boots you'd think they was too large; 
but kind o' git your foot into 'em and they're as easy's a 
glove." (I observed that he never seemed really to get his 
foot in, — there was always a quahfjdng kind 0'.) "Wahl, 
my foot can play in 'em like a young hedgehog." 30 

By this time we had arrived at Kineo, — a flourishing 



68 EARLIER ESSAYS 

village of one house, the tavern kept by 'Squire Barrows. 
The 'Squire is a large, hearty man, with a voice as clear and 
strong as a northwest wind, and a great laugh suitable to it. 
His table is neat and well supplied, and he waits upon it 
5 himself in the good old landlordly fashion. One may be 
much better off here, to my thinking, than in one of those 
gigantic Columbaria® which are foisted upon us patient 
Americans for hotels, and where one is packed away in a 
pigeon-hole so near the heavens that, if the comet should 

lo flirt its tail, (no unhkely thing in the month of flies,) one 
would be in danger of being brushed away. Here one 
does not pay his diurnal three dollars for an undivided 
five-hundredth part of the pleasure of looking at gilt 
gingerbread. Here one's relations are with the monarch 

15 liimself, and one is not obhged to wait the slow leisure of 
those ^'attentive clerks" whose praises are sung by thank- 
ful deadheads, and to whom the slave who pays may feel 
as much gratitude as might thrill the heart of a brown- 
paper parcel toward the express-man who labels it and 

20 chucks it under Ms counter. 

Sunday, 14:th. — The loons were right. About midnight 
it began to rain in earnest, and did not hold up till about 
ten o'clock tliis morning. ''This is a Maine dew," said a 
shaggy woodman cheerily, as he shook the water out of his 

25 wide-awake, "if it don't look out sharp, it'll begin to rain 
afore it thinks on't." The day was mostly spent within 
doors; but I found good and intelhgent society. We 
should have to be shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez" not to 
find men who knew more than we. In these travelHng 

30 encounters one is thrown upon his own resources, and is 
worth just what he carries about him. The social currency 



EARLIER ESSAYS 69 

of home, the smooth-worn coin which passes freely among 
friends and neighbors, is of no account. We are thrown 
back upon the old system of barter ; and, even with savages, 
we bring away only as much of the wild wealth of the woods 
as we carry beads of thought and experience, strung one by 5 
one in painful years, to pay for them with. A useful old 
jackknife will buy more than the daintiest Louis Quinze° 
paper-folder fresh from Paris. Perhaps the kind of intelli- 
gence one gets in these out-of-the-way places is the best, 
— where one takes a fresh man after breakfast instead of 10 
the damp morning paper, and where the magnetic tele- 
graph of human sympathy flashes swift news from brain 
to brain. 

Meanwhile, at a pinch, to-morrow's weather can be 
discussed. The augury from the flight of birds is favor- 15 
able, — the loons no longer prophesying rain. The wind 
also is hauling round to the right quarter, according to 
some, to the wrong, if we are to beheve others. Each 
man has his private barometer of hope, the mercury in 
which is more or less sensitive, and the opinion vibrant 20 
with its rise or fall. Mine has an index which can be 
moved mechanicallj^ I fixed it at set fair, and resigned 
myself. I read an old volume of the Patent-Office Report 
on Agriculture, and stored away a beautiful pile of facts 
and observations for future use, which the current of 25 
occupation, at its first freshet, would sweep quietly off to 
blank obUvion. Practical appHcation is the only mordant 
which will set things in the memory. Study, without it, is 
gymnastics, and not work, which alone will get intellectual 
bread. One learns more metaphysics from a single tempta- 30 
tion than from all the philosophers. It is curious, though, 



70 EARLIER ESSAYS 

how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we 
make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being 
left alone with so much as our own minds. I have seen a 
sensible man study a stale newspaper in a country tavern, 

5 and husband it as he would an old shoe on a raft after ship- 
wreck. Wliy not try a bit of hibernation ? There are few 
brains that would not be better for living on their own fat 
a little while. With these reflections, I, notwithstanding, 
spent the afternoon over my Report. If our own experi- 

lo ence is of so httle use to us, what a dolt is he who recom- 
mends to man or nation the experience of others ! Like the 
mantle in the old ballad, it is always too short or too long, 
and exposes or trips us up. ''Keep out of that candle," 
says old Father Miller, "or you'll get a singeing." "Pooh, 

15 pooh, father, I've been dipped in the new asbestos prepara- 
tion," and frozz ! it is all over with young Jlopeful. How 
many warnings have been drawn from Pretorian bands, 
and Janizaries, and Mamelukes,° to make Napoleon III. 
impossible in 1851 ! I found myself thinking the same 

20 thoughts over again, when we walked later on the beach 
and picked up pebbles. The old time-ocean throws upon 
its shores just such rounded and pohshed results of the 
eternal turmoil, but we only see the beauty of those we 
have got the headache in stooping for ourselves, and won- 

25 der at the dull brown bits of common stone with which our 
comrades have stuffed their pockets. Afterwards this little 
fable came of it. 

^ DOCTOR LOBSTER 

A PERCH, who had the toothache, once 
Thus moaned, like any human dunce : 



EARLIER ESSAYS 71 

"Why must great souls exhaust so soon 

Life's thin and unsubstantial boon? 

Existence on such sculpin terms, — 

Their vulgar loves and hard-won worms, — • 

What is it all but dross to me, S 

Whose nature craves a larger sea ; 

Whose inches, six from head to tail, 

Enclose the spirit of a whale ; 

Who, if great baits were still to win, 

By watchful eye and fearless fin lo 

Might with the Zodiac's awful twain 

Room for a third immortal gain? 

Better the crowd's unthinking plan, — 

The hook, the jerk, the frying-pan? 

O Death, thou ever roaming shark, ig 

Ingulf me in eternal dark !" 



The speech was cut in two by flight : 

A real shark had come in sight ; 

No metaphoric monster, one 

It soothes despair to call upon, 20 

But stealthy, sidelong, grim, I wis, 

A bit of downright Nemesis ; 

While it recovered from the shock. 

Our fish took shelter 'neath a rock : 

This was an ancient lobster's house, 25 

A lobster of prodigious nous, 

So old that barnacles had spread 

Their white encampments o'er its head, 

And of experience so stupend, 

His claws were blunted at the end, 30 

Turning hfe's iron pages o'er. 

That shut and can be oped no more. 

Stretching a hospitable claw. 



72 EARLIER ESSAYS 

**At once," said he, "the point I saw; 
My dear young friend, your case I rue, 
Your great-great-grandfather I knew ; 
He was a tried and tender friend 
S I know, — I ate him in the end : 

In this vile sea a pilgrim long. 
Still my sight's good, my memory strong; 
The only sign that age is near 
Is a slight deafness in this ear ; 

lo I understand your ease as well 

As this my old familiar shell ; 
This sorrow's a new-fangled notion, 
Come in since first I knew the ocean ; 
We had no radicals, nor crimes, 

15 Nor lobster-pots, in good old times ; 

Your traps and nets and hooks we owe 
To Messieurs Louis Blanc and Co. ; 
I say to all my sons and daughters, 
Shun Red Republican hot waters ; 

20 No lobster ever cast his lot 

Among the reds, but went to pot : 
Your trouble's in the jaw, you said? 
Come, let me just nip off your head. 
And, when a new one comes, the pain 

25 Will never trouble you again : 

Nay, nay, fear naught : 't is nature's law. 
Four times I've lost this starboard claw ; 
And still, erelong, another grew. 
Good as the old, — and better too !" 



30 The perch consented, and next day 

An osprey, marketing that way. 
Picked up a fish without a head. 
Floating with belly up, stone dead. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 73 



Sharp are the teeth of ancient saws, 
And sauce for goose is gander's sauce ; 
But perch's heads aren't lobster's claws. 

Monday, 15th. — The morning was fine, and we were 
called at four o'clock. At the moment my door was 5 
knocked at, I was mounting a giraffe with that charming 
7iil admirari° which characterizes dreams, to visit Prester 
John.° Rat-tat-tat-tat ! upon my door and upon the horn 
gate of dreams also. I remarked to my skowhegan (the 
Tatar for giraffe-driver) that I was quite sure the animal 10 
had the raps, a common disease among them, for I heard a 
queer knocking noise inside him. It is the sound of his 
joints, Tambourgi! (an Oriental term of reverence,) 
and proves him to be of the race of El Keirat. Rat-tat- 
tat-too ! and I lost my dinner at the Prester's, embarking 15 
for a voyage to the Northwest Carry instead. Never use 
the word canoe, my dear Storg, if you wish to retain your 
self-respect. Birch is the term among us backwoodsmen, 
I never knew it till yesterday ; but, like a true philosopher, 
I made it appear as if I had been intimate with it from' 20 
childhood. The rapidity with which the human mind 
levels itself to the standard around it gives us the most 
pertinent warning as to the company we keep. It is as 
hard for most characters to stay at their own average point 
in all companies, as for a thermometer to say 65° for twenty- 2.5 
four hours together. I like this in our friend Johannes 
Tauras, that he carries everywhere and maintains his insu- 
lar temperature, and will have everything accommodate 
itself to that. Shall I confess that this morning I would 



74 EARLIER ESSAYS 

rather have broken the moral law, than have endangered 
the equipoise of the birch by my awkwardness? that 
I should have been prouder of a compliment to my paddling 
than to have had both my guides suppose me the author of 
5 Hamlet ? Well, Cardinal RicheHeu° used to jump over 
chairs. 

We were to paddle about twenty miles, but we made it 
rather more by crossing and recrossing the lake. Twice 
we landed, — once at a camp, where we found the cook 

lo alone, baldng bread and gingerbread. Monsieur Soyer 
would have been startled a httle by this shaggy professor, 
— this Pre-Raphaelite° of cookery. He represented the 

' saloeratus° period of the art, and his bread was of a brilhant 
yellow, Hke those cakes tinged with saffron, which hold 

15 out so long against time and the flies in little water-side 
shops of seaport towns, — dingy extremities of trade fit to 
moulder on Lethe° wharf. His water was better, squeezed 
out of ice-cold granite in the neighboring mountains, and 
sent through subterranean ducts to sparkle up by the door 

20 of the camp. 

*' There's notliin' so sweet an' hulsome as your real spring 
water," said Uncle Zeb, '^git it pure. But it's dreffle hard 
to git it that ain't got sunthin' the matter of it. Sno^- 
water'U burn a man's inside out, — I larned that to the 

25 'Roostick war, — and the snow lays terrible long on some 
o' thes'ere hills. Me an' Eb Stiles was up old Ktahdn 
once jest about this time o' year, an' we come acrost a kind 
o' holler Hke, as full o' snow as your stockin's full o' your 
foot. / see it fust, an' took an' rammed a settin'-pole ; 

30 wahl, it was all o' twenty foot into 't, an' couldn't fin' no 
bottom. I dunno as there's snow-water enough in this to 



EARLIER ESSAYS 75 

do no hurt. lon't somehow seem to tliiiik that real 
spring-water's ) plenty as it used to be." And Uncle 
Zeb, with perhtps a little over-refinement of scrupulosity, 
appHed his lips to the Ethiop ones of a bottle of raw gin, 
with a kiss that drew out its very soul, — a basia° that 5 
Secundus° might have sung. He must have been a won- 
derful judge of water, for he analyzed this, and detected 
its latent snow simply by his eye, and without the clumsy 
process of tasting. I could not help thinking that he had 
made the desert his dwelling-place chiefly in order to enjoy 10 
the ministrations of tliis one fair spirit unmolested. 

We pushed on. Little islands loomed trembling between 
sky and water, like hanging gardens. Gradually the filmy 
trees defined themselves, the aerial enchantment lost its 
potency, and we came up with common prose islands that 15 
had so late been magical and poetic. The old story of the 
attained and unattained. About noon we reached the 
head of the lake, and took possession of a deserted wongen° 
in wliich to cook and eat our dinner. No Jew, I am sure, 
can have a more thorough dishke of salt pork than I have 20 
in a normal state, yet I had already eaten it raw with 
hard bread for lunch, and reUshed it keenly. We soon had 
our tea-kettle over the fire, and before long the cover was 
chattering with the escaping steam, which had thus vainly 
begged of all men to be saddled and bridled, till James Watt 25 
one day happened to overhear it. One of our guides shot 
three Canada grouse, and these were turned slowly between 
the fire and a bit of salt pork, which dropped fatness upon 
them as it fried. Although my fingers were certainly not 
made before knives and forks, yet they served as a con- 30 
venient substitute for those more ancient inventions. We 



76 EARLIER ESSAYS 

sat round, Turk-fashion, and ate thankfully, while a party 
of aborigines of the Mosquito tribe, who had camped in the 
wongen before we arrived, dined upon us. I do not know 
what the British Protectorate of the Mosquitoes amounts 

s to ; but, as I squatted there at the mercy of these blood- 
thirsty savages, I no longer wondered that the classic 
Everett had been stung into a wiUingness for war on the 
question. 

''This 'ere'd be about a complete place for a camp, ef 

lo there was on'y a spring o' sweet water handy. Frizzled 
pork goes wal, don't it ? Yes, an' sets wal, too," said Uncle 
Zeb, and he again tilted his bottle, which rose nearer and 
nearer to an angle of forty-five at every gurgle. He then 
broached a curious dietetic theory: "The reason we take 

IS salt pork along is cos it packs handy : you git the greatest 

amount o' board in the smallest compass, — let alone that 

it's more nourisliin' than an'thin' else. It kind o' don't 

digest so quick, but stays by ye, anourishin' ye all the while. 

"A feller can Uve wal on frizzled pork an' good spring- 

20 water, git it good. To the 'Roostick war we didn't askior 
nothin' better, — • on'y beans." (Tilt, tilt, gurgle, gurgle.) 
Then, with an apparent feeling of inconsistency, "But 
then, come to git used to a particular kind o' spring- water, 
an' it makes a feller hard to suit. Most all sorts o' water 

25 taste kind o' insipid away from home. Now, I've gut a 
spring to my place that's as sweet — wahl, it's as sweet as 
maple sap. A feller acts about water jest as he does about 
a pair o' boots, It's all on it in gittin' wonted. Now, 
them boots," &c., &c. (Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, smack!) 

30 All this while he was packing away the remains of the 
pork and hard bread in two large firkins. This accom- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 77 

plished, we reembarked, our uncle on his way to the birch 
essaying a kind of song in four or five parts, of which the 
words were hilarious and the tune profoundly melancholy, 
and which was finished, and the rest of his voice apparently 
jerked out of him in one sharp falsetto note, by his tripping s 
over the root of a tree. We paddled a short distance up a 
brook wliich came into the lake smoothly through a little 
meadow not far off. We soon reached the Northwest 
Carry, and our guide, pointing through the woods, said : 
''That's the Cannydy road. Yoii can travel that clearn lo 
to Kebeck, a hundred an' twenty mile," — a privilege of 
which I respectfully dechned to avail myself. The offer, 
however, remains open to the pubHc. The Carry is called 
two miles ; but this is the estimate of somebody who had 
notliing to lug. I had a headache and all my baggage, 15 
which, with a traveller's instinct, I had brought with me. 
(P. S. — I did not even take the keys out of my pocket, 
and both my bags were wet through before I came back.) 
My estimate of the distance is eighteen thousand six 
hundred and seventy-four miles and three quarters, — the 20 
fraction being the part left to be travelled after one of my 
companions most kindly insisted on reUeving me of my 
heaviest bag. I know very well that the ancient Roman 
soldiers used to carry sixty pounds' weight, and all that ; 
but I am not, and never shall be, an ancient Roman soldier, 25 
— no, not even in the miraculous Thundering Legion.° 
Uncle Zeb slung the two provender firkins across his shoul- 
der, and trudged along, grumbling that ''he never see sech 
a contrairy pair as them." He had begun upon a second 
bottle of his "particular kind o' spring- water," and, at 30 
every rest, the gurgle of tliis peripatetic fountain might be 



78 EARLIER ESSAYS 

heard, followed by a smack, a fragment of mosaic song, or a 
confused clatter with the cowhide boots, being an arbitrary 
symbol, intended to represent the festive dance. Christian's 
pack gave him not half so much trouble as the firkins gave 
s Uncle Zeb. It grew harder and harder to sHng them, and 
with every fresh gulp of the Batavian° ehxir, they got 
heavier. Or rather, the truth was, that his hat grew 
heavier, in wliich he was carrying on an extensive manufac- 
ture of bricks without straw. At last affairs reached a 

lo crisis, and a particularly favorable pitch offering, with a 
puddle- at the foot of it, even the boots afforded no sufficient 
ballast, and away went our uncle, the satellite firkins 
accompanying faithfully Ms headlong flight. Did ever 
exiled monarch or disgraced minister find the cause of his 

IS fall in himself ? Is there not always a strawberry at the 
bottom of our cup of Hfe, on which we can lay all the blame 
of our deviations from the straight path? Till now Uncle 
Zeb had contrived to give a gloss of volition to smaller 
stumbhngs and gyrations, by exaggerating them into an 

20 appearance of playful burlesque. But the present case 
was beyond any such subterfuges. He held a bed of justice 
where he sat, and then arose slowly, with a stern deter- 
mination of vengeance stiffening every muscle of his face. 
But what would he select as the culprit ? *' It's that cussed 

25 firkin," he mumbled to himself. " I never knowed a firkin 
cair on so, — no, not in the 'Roostehicick war. There, go 
long, will ye ? and don't come back till you've larned how to 
walk with a genelman ! " And, seizing the unhappy scape- 
goat by the bail, he hurled it into the forest. It is a curious 

30 circumstance, that it was not the firkin containing the 
bottle which was thus condemned to exile. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 79 

The end of the Carry was reached at last, and, as we 
drew near it, we heard a sound of shouting and laughter. 
It came from a party of men making hay of the wild grass in 
Seboomok meadows, which he arpund Seboomok pond, 
into wliich the Carry empties itself. Their camp was near, 5 
and our two hunters set out for it, leaving us seated in the 
birch on the plashy border of the pond. The repose was 
perfect. Another heaven hallowed and deepened the 
poUshed lake, and through that nether world the fish- 
hawk's double floated with balanced wings, or, wheeUng 10 
suddenly, flashed his whitened breast against the sun. 
As the clattering kingfisher flew unsteadily across, and 
seemed to push his heavy head along with ever-renewing 
effort, a visionary mate flitted from downward tree to tree 
below. Some tall alders shaded us from the sun, in whose 15 
yellow afternoon Hght the drowsy forest was steeped, giving 
out that wholesome resinous perfume, almost the only 
warm odor which it is refreshing to breathe. The tame 
hay-cocks in the midst of the wildness gave one a pleasant 
reminiscence of home, Hke hearing one's native tongue in a 20 
strange country. 

Presently our hunters came back, bringing with them a 
tall, thin, active-looking man, with black eyes, that glanced 
unconsciously on all sides, hke one of those spots of sunhght 
which a child dances up and down the street with a bit of 25 
looldng-glass. This was M., the captain of the hay- 
makers, a famous river-driver, and who was to have fifty 
men under him next winter. I could now understand that 
sleepless vigilance of eye. He had consented to take two 
of our party in his birch to search for moose. A quick, 30 
nervous, decided man, he got them into the birch, and was 



80 EARLIER ESSAYS 

off instantly, without a superfluous word. He evidently- 
looked upon them as he would upon a couple of logs which 
he was to deliver at a certain place. Indeed, I doubt if life 
and the world presented themselves to Napier° himself in a 
5 more logarithmic way. His only thought was to do the 
immediate duty well, and to pilot his particular raft down 
the crooked stream of hfe to the ocean beyond. The birch 
seemed to feel him as an inspiring soul, and slid away 
straight and smft for the outlet of the pond. As he dis- 

lo appeared under the over-arcliing alders of the brook, our 
two hunters could not repress a grave and measured ap- 
plause. There is never any extravagance among these 
woodmen ; their eye, accustomed to reckoning the number 
of feet which a tree will scale, is rapid and close in its guess 

15 of the amount of stuff in a man. It was laudari a laudato ° 
however, for they themselves were accounted good men in 
a birch. I was amused, in talking with them about him, to 
meet with an instance of that tendency of the human mind 
to assign some utterly improbable reason for gifts which 

20 seem unaccountable. After due praise, one of them said, 
" I guess he's got some Injun in him," although I knew very 
well that the speaker had a thorough contempt for the red- 
man, mentally and physically. Here was mythology in a 
small way, — the same that under more favorable auspices 

25 hatched Helen° out of an egg and gave MerUn° an Incubus 
for a father. I was pleased with all I saw of M. He was in 
his narrow sphere a true ava| av8pwv,° and the ragged edges 
of his old hat seemed to become coronated as I looked at 
him. He impressed me as a man really educated, — that 

30 is, with his aptitudes drawn out and ready for use. He was 
A. M. and LL. D. in Woods College, — Axe-master and 



EARLIER ESSAYS 81 

Doctor of Logs. Are not our educations commonly like 
a pile of books laid over a plant in a pot ? The compressed 
nature struggles through at every crevice, but can never 
get the cramp and stunt out of it. We spend all our youth 
in building a vessel for our voyage of Hf e, and set forth with 5 
streamers flying ; but the moment we come nigh the great 
loadstone mountain of our proper destiny, out leap all our 
carefully-driven bolts and nails, and we get many a mouth- 
ful of good salt brine, and many a buffet of the rough water 
of experience, before we secure the bare right to live. lo 

We now entered the outlet, a long-drawn aisle of alder, 
on each side of which spired tall firs, spruces, and white 
cedars. The motion of the birch reminded me of the 
gondola, and they represent among water-craft the felidoe 
the cat tribe, stealthy, silent, treacherous, and preying by 15 
night. I closed my eyes, and strove to fancy myself in the 
dumb city, whose only horses are the bronze ones of St. 
Mark.° But Nature would allow no rival, and bent down 
an alder-bough to brush my cheek and recall me. Only 
the robin sings in the emerald chambers of these tall sylvan 20 
palaces, and the squirrel leaps from hanging balcony to 
balcony. 

The rain which the loons foreboded had raised the west 
branch of the Penobscot so much, that a strong current 
was setting back into the pond ; and, when at last we 25 
brushed through into the river, it was full to the brim, — 
too full for moose, the hunters said. Rivers with low 
banks have always the compensation of giving a sense of 
entire fulness. The sun sank behind its horizon of pines, 
whose pointed summits notched the rosy west in an endless 3° 
black sierra ° At the same moment the golden moon 

G 



82 EARLIER ESSAYS 

swung slowly up in the east, like the other scale of that 
Homeric balance in which Zeus° weighed the deeds of men. 
Sunset and moonrise at once ! Adam had no more in 
Eden — except the head of Eve upon his shoulder. The 
5 stream was so smooth, that the floating logs we met seemed 
to hang in a glowing atmosphere, the shadow-half being as 
real as the solid. And gradually the mind was etherized 
to a hke dreamy placidity, till fact and fancy, the substance 
and the image, floating on the current of reverie, became 

lo but as the upper and under halves of one unreal reality. 

In the west still hngared a pale-green hght. I do not 

known whether it be from greater familiarity, but it always 

seems to me that the pinnacles of pine-trees make an edge to 

the landscape which tells better against the twilight, or the 

15 fainter dawn before the rising moon, than the rounded and 
cloud-cumulus outline of hard-wood trees. 

After paddling a couple of miles, we found the arbored 
mouth of the httle Malahoodus River, famous for moose. 
We had been on the look-out for it, and I was amused to 

20 hear one of the hunters say to the other, to assure himself 
of his familiarity with the spot, ''You drove the West 
Branch last spring, didn't you?" as one of us might ask 
about a horse. We did not explore the Malahoodus far, 
but left the other birch to thread its cedared sohtudes, 

25 while we turned back to try our fortunes in the larger 
stream. We paddled on about four miles farther, lingering 
now and then opposite the black mouth of a moose-path. 
The incidents of our voyage were few, but quite as exciting 
and profitable ^s the items of the newspapers. A stray 

30 log compensated very well for the ordinary run of accidents, 
and the floating carkiss of a moose which we met could pass 



EARLIER ESSAYS 83 

muster instead of a singular discovery of human remains 
by workmen in digging a cellar. Once or twice we saw 
what seemed ghosts of trees; but they turned out to be 
dead cedars, in winding-sheets of long gray moss, made 
spectral by the moonlight. Just as we were turning to s 
drift back down-stream, we heard a loud gnawing sound 
close by us on the bank. One of our guides thought it a 
hedgehog, the other a bear. I inchned to the bear, as mak- 
ing the adventure more imposing. A rifle was fired at 
the sound, which began again with the most provoking lo 
indifference, ere the echo, flaring madly at first from shore 
to shore, died far away in a hoarse sigh. 

Half past Eleven, p. m. — No sign of a moose yet. The 
birch, it seems, was strained at the Carry, or the pitch was 
softened as she lay on the shore during dinner, and she is 
leaks a little. If there be an}'- virtue in the sitzbad° I shall 
discover it. If I cannot extract green cucumbers from the 
moon's rays, I get something quite as cool. One of the 
guides shivers so as to shake the birch. 

Quarter to Twelve. — Later from the Freshet! — The water 20 
in the birch is about three inches deep, but the dampness 
reaches already nearly to the waist. I am obhged to 
remove the matches from the ground-floor of my trousers 
into the upper story of a breast-pocket. Meanwhile, we 
are to sit immovable, — for fear of frightening the moose, 25 
— which induces cramps. 

Half past Twelve. — A crashing is heard on the left bank. 
This is a moose in good earnest. We are besought to hold 
our breaths, if possible. My fingers so numb, I could not, 
if I tried. Crash ! crash ! again, and then a plunge, followed 30 
by dead stillness. '' Swimmin' crik," whispers guide, sup- 



84 EARLIER ESSAYS 

pressing all unnecessary parts of speech, — "don't stir." 
I, for one, am not likely to. A cold fog which has been 
gathering for the last hour has finished me. I fancy myself 
one of those naked pigs that seem rushing out of market- 
5 doors in winter, frozen in a ghastly attitude of gallop. If I 
were to be shot myself, I should feel no interest in it. As it 
is, I am only a spectator, having declined a gun. Splash ! 
again ; this time the moose is in sight, and click ! click ! one 
rifle misses fire after the other. The fog has quietly spiked 

lo our batteries. The moose goes crashing up the bank, and 
presently we can hear it che^ving its cud close by. So we 
he in wait, freezing. 

At > one o'clock, I propose to land at a deserted wongen I 
had noticed on the way up, where I will make a fire, and 

15 leave them to refrigerate as much longer as they please. 
Axe in hand, I go plunging through waist-deep weeds 
dripping with dew, haunted by an intense conviction that 
the gnawing sound we had heard was a bear, and a bear at 
least eighteen hands high. There is something pokerish 

20 about a deserted dwelhng, even in broad daylight; but 
here in the obscure wood, and the moon filtering unwilhngly 
through the trees ! Well, I made the door at last, and 
found the place packed fuller with darkness than it ever 
had been with hay. Gradually I was able to make things 

25 out a httle, and began to hack frozenly at a log wliich I 
groped out. I was reheved presently by one of the guides. 
He cut at once into one of the uprights of the building till 
he got some dry splinters, and we soon had a fire like the 
burning of a whole wood-wharf in our part of the country. 

30 My companion went back to the birch, and left me to keep 
house. First I knocked a hole in the roof (which the 



EARLIER ESSAYS 85 

fire began to lick in a relishing way) for a chimney, and 
then cleared away a damp growth of ''pison-elder/' to 
make a sleeping place. When the unsuccessful hunters 
returned, I had everything quite comfortable, and was 
steaming at the rate of about ten horse-power a minute. 5 
Young Telemachus° was sorry to give up the moose so 
soon, and, with the teeth chattering almost out of his head, 
he declared that he would Hke to stick it out all night. 
However, he reconciled himself to the fire, and, making our 
beds of some " spHts" which we poked from the roof, we lay 10 
down at half past two. I, who have inherited a habit of 
looking into every closet before I go to bed, for fear of fire, 
had become in two days such a stoic of the woods, that I 
went to sleep tranquilly, certain that my bedroom would 
be in a blaze before morning. And so, indeed, it was ; and 15 
the withes that bound it together being burned off, one of 
the sides fell in without waking me. 

Tuesday, 16th. — After a sleep of two hours and a half, 
so sound that it was as good as eight, we started at half 
past four for the hay-makers' camp again. We found them 20 
just getting breakfast. We sat down upon the deacon-seaf 
before the fire blazing between the bedroom and the salle a 
manger ° which were simply two roofs of spruce-bark, slop- 
ing to the ground on one side, the other three being left 
open. We found that we had, at least, been luclder than 25 
the other party, for M. had brought back his convoy with- 
out even seeing a moose. As there was not room at the 
table for all of us to breakfast together, these hospitable 
woodmen forced us to sit down first, although we resisted 
stoutly. Our breakfast consisted of fresh bread, fried salt 30 
pork, stewed whortleberries, and tea. Our kind hosts 



86 EARLIER ESSAYS 

refused to take money for it, nor would M. accept anything 
for his trouble. Tliis seemed even more open-handed 
when I remembered that they had brought all their stores 
over the Carry upon their shoulders, paying an ache extra 
5 for every pound. If their hospitality lacked anything of 
hard external poHsh, it had all the deeper grace which 
springs only from sincere manliness. I have rarely sat at 
a table d'hote^ which might not have taken a lesson from 
them in essential courtesy. I have never seen a finer race 

lo of men. They have all the virtue/ of the sailor, without 
that unsteady roll in the gait with which the ocean pro- 
claims itself quite as much in the moral as in the physical 
habit of a man. They appeared to me to have hewn out a 
short northwest passage through wintry woods to those 

IS spice-lands of character wliich we dwellers in cities must 
reach, if at all, by weary voyages in the monotonous track 
of the trades. 

By the way, as we were embirching last evening for our 
moose-chase, I asked what I was to do with my baggage. 

20 "Leave it here," said our guide, and he laid the bags upon a 
platform of alders, which he bent down to keep them 
beyond reach of the rising water. 
''Will they be safe here?" 
*'As safe as they would be locked up in your house at 

25 home." 

And so I found them at my return ; only the hay-makers 
had carried them to their camp for greater security against 
the chances of the weather. 

We got back to Kineo in time for dinner; and in the 

30 afternoon, the weather being fine, went up the mountain. 
As we landed at the foot, our guide pointed to the remains 



EARLIER ESSAYS 87 

of a red shirt and a pair of blanket trousers. *'That," 
said he, " is the reason there's such a trade in ready-made 
clo'es. A suit gits pooty well wore out by the time a camp 
breaks up in the spring, and the lumberers want to look 
about right when they come back into the settlements, so 5 
they buy somethin' ready-made, and heave ole bust-up 
into the bush." True enough, thought I, this is the Ready- 
made Age. It is quicker being covered than fitted. So we 
all go to the slop-shop and come out uniformed, every 
mother's son with habits of thinldng and doing cut on one lo 
pattern, with no special reference to Ms pecuhar build. 

Kineo rises 1750 feet above the sea, and 750 above the 
la,ke. The cUmb is very easy, with fine outlooks at every 
turn over lake and forest. Near the top is a spring of 
water, which even Uncle Zeb might have allowed to be 15 
wholesome. The Httle tin dipper was scratched all over 
with names, showing that vanity, at least, is not put out 
of breath by the ascent. O Ozymandias,° King of kings ! 
We are all scrawling on something of the Idnd. ' ' My name 
is engraved on the institutions of my country," thinks the 20 
statesman. But, alas ! institutions are as changeable as 
tin-dippers ; men are content to drink the same old water, 
if the shape of the cup only be new, and our friend gets two 
lines in the Biographical Dictionaries. After all, these 
inscriptions, which make us smile up here, are about as 25 
valuable as the Assyrian ones which Hincks and RawHn- 
son° read at cross-purposes. Have we not Smiths and 
Browns enough, that we must ransack the ruins of Nim- 
roud for more? Near the spring we met a Bloomer! It 
was the first chronic one I had ever seen. It struck me 30 
as a sensible costume for the occasion, and it will be the 



88 EARLIER ESSAYS 

only wear in the Greek Kalends, ° when women believe that 
sense is an equivalent for grace. 

The forest primeval is best seen from the top of a moun- 
tain. It then impresses one by its extent, like an Oriental 

5 epic. To be in it is nothing, for then an acre is as good 
as a thousand square miles. You cannot see five rods in 
any direction, and the ferns, mosses, and tree-trunks just 
around you are the best of it. As for soUtude, night will 
make a better one with ten feet square of pitch dark ; and 

lo mere size is hardly an element of grandeur, except in 
works of man, — as the Colosseum. ° It is through one 
or the other pole of vanity that men feel the subUme in 
mountains. It is either. How small great I am beside it ! 
or. Big as you are, httle I's soul will hold a dozen of you. 

IS The true idea of a forest is not a selva selvaggia° but some- 
thing humanized a httle, as we imagine the forest of Arden,° 
with trees standing at royal intervals, — a commonwealth, 
and not a communism. To some moods, it is congenial to 
look over endless leagues of unbroken savagery without a 

20 hint of man, 

Wednesday. — Tliis morning fished. Telemachus caught 
a laker° of thirteen pounds and a half, and I an over- 
grown cusk, which we threw away, but which I found after- 
wards Agassiz would have been glad of, for all is fish that 

25 comes to his net, from the fossil down. The fish, when 
caught, are straightway knocked on the head. A lad who 
went with us seeming to show an over-zeal in this opera- 
tion, we remonstrated. But he gave a good, human reason 
for it, — ''He no need to ha' gone and been a fish if he 

30 didn't hke it," — an excuse which superior strength or 
cunning has always found sufficient. It was some comfort, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 89 

in this case, to think that St. Jerome° believed in a limita- 
tion of God's providence, and that it did not extend to 
inanimate things or creatures devoid of reason. 

Thus, my dear Storg, I have finished my Oriental ad- 
ventures, and somewhat, it must be owned in the diffuse s 
Oriental manner. There is very little about Moosehead 
Lake in it, and not even the Latin name for moose, which 
I might have obtained by sufficient research. If I had 
killed one, I would have given you his name in that dead 
language. I did not profess to give you an account of the lo 
lake ; but a journal, and, moreover, my journal, with a little 
nature, a little human nature, and a great deal of I in it, which 
last ingredient I take to be the true spirit of this species of 
writing ; all the rest being so much water for tender throats 
which cannot take it neat. 15 



THOREAU° 

What contemporary, if he was in the fighting period of 
his Hfe, (since Nature sets Hmits about her conscription for 
spiritual fields, as the state does in physical welfare,) will 
ever forget what was somewhat vaguely called the ''Tran- 

5 scendental Movement "° of thirty years ago. Apparently 
set astirring by Carlyle's essays on the " Signs of the Times " 
and on "History," the final and more immediate impulse 
seemed to be given by ''Sartor Resartus."° At least the 
repubhcation in Boston of that wonderful Abraham a 

lo Sancta Clara° sermon on Lear's text of the miserable forked 
radish gave the signal for a sudden mental and moral 
mutiny. Ecce nunc tempus acceptabile !° was shouted on 
all hands with every variety of emphasis, and by voices of 
every conceivable pitch, representing the three sexes of 

15 men, women, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagues. ° 
The nameless eagle of the tree Ygdrasil° was about to 
set at last, and wild-eyed enthusiasts rushed from all sides, 
each eager to thrust under the mystic bird that chalk egg 
from wliich the new and fairer Creation was to be hatched 

20 in due time. Redeunt Saturnia reg7ia°, — so far was certain, 
though in what shape, or by what methods, was still a 
matter of debate. Every possible form of intellectual and 
physical dyspepsia brought forth its gospel. Bran had its 
prophets, and the presartorial simplicity of Adam its 

90 



EARLIER ESSAYS 91 

martyrs, tailored impromptu from the tar-pot by incensed 
neighbors, and sent forth to illustrate the ''feathered Mer- 
cury," as defined by Webster and Worcester. Plainness of 
speech was carried to a pitch that would have taken away 
the breath of George Fox ;° and even swearing had its s 
evangehsts, who answered a simple inquiry after their 
health with an elaborate ingenuity of imprecation that 
might have been honorablj^ mentioned bj^ ]\larlborough° 
in general orders. Everybody had a mission (with a capi- 
tal M) to attend to everybody-else's business. No brain lo 
but has its private maggot, which must have found pitiably 
short commons sometimes. Not a few impecunious zealots 
abjured the use of money (unless earned by other people), 
professing to live on the internal revenues of the spirit. 
Some had an assurance of instant millennium so soon as 15 
hooks and eyes should be substituted for buttons. Com- 
munities were estabhshed where everything was to be 
common but common-sense. Men renounced their old 
gods, and hesitated only whether to bestow their furloughed 
allegiance on Thor or Budh.° Conventions were held for 20 
every hitherto inconceivable purpose. The belated gift of 
tongues, as among the Fifth Monarchy men,° spread Uke 
a contagion, rendering its victims incomprehensible to all 
Christian men; whether equally so to the most distant 
possible heathen or not, was unexperimented, though 25 
many would have subscribed hberally that a fair trial 
might be made. It was the pentecost of Shinar.° The 
day of utterances reproduced the day of rebuses and 
anagrams, and there was nothing so simple that uncial 
letters and the style of Diphilus° the Labyrinth could not 30 
make into a riddle. Many foreign revolutionists out of work 



92 EARLIER ESSAYS 

added to the general misunderstanding their contribution 
of broken Enghsh in every most ingenious form of fracture. 
All stood ready at a moment's notice to reform everything 
but themselves. The general motto was : — 

5 "And we'll talk with them, too, 

And take upon 's the mystery 'of things 
As if we were God's spies." 

Nature is always kind enough to give even her clouds a 
humorous hning. We have barely hinted at the comic side 

lo of the affair, for the material was endless. This was the 
wliistle and trailing fuse of the shell, but there was a very 
solid and serious kernel, full of the most deadly explosive- 
ness. Thoughtful men divined it, but the generality sus- 
pected nothing. The word "transcendental" then was 

15 the maid of all work for those who could not think, as 
" Pre-Raphaehte " has been more recently for people of 
the same hmited housekeeping. The truth is, that there 
was a much nearer metaphysical relation and a much 
more distant aesthetic and literary relation between 

20 Carlyle and the Apostles of the Newness, as they were 
called in New England, than has commonly been supposed. 
Both represented the reaction and revolt against Philis- 
terei° a renewal of the old battle begun in modern times 
by Erasmus and Reuchlin,° and continued by Lessing, 

25 Goethe, and, in a far narrower sense, by Heine in Germany, 
and of which Fielding, Sterne, and Wordsworth in different 
ways have been the leaders in England. It was simply a 
struggle for fresh air, in which, if the windows could not be 
opened, there was danger that panes would be broken, 

30 though painted with images of saints and martyrs. Light 



EARLIER ESSAYS 93 

colored by these reverent effigies was none the more re- 
spirable for being picturesque. There is only one thing 
better than tradition, and that is the original and eternal 
life out of which all tradition takes its rise. It was this life 
which the reformers demanded, with more or less clearness 5 
of consciousness and expression, life in pohtics, Hfe in 
literature, Ufe in rehgion. Of what use to import a gospel 
from Judaea, if we leave behind the soul that made it possi- 
ble, the God who keeps it forever real and present ? Surely 
Abana and Pharpar° are better than Jordan, if a Kving 10 
faith be mixed with those waters and none with these. 

Scotch Presbyterianism as a motive of spiritual prog- 
ress was dead; New England Puritanism was in hke 
manner dead ; in other words. Protestantism had made its 
fortune and no longer protested ; but till Carlyle spoke 15 
out in the Old World and Emerson in the New, no one had 
dared to proclaim, Le roi est mort : vive le roi !° The mean- 
ing of which proclamation was essentially this : the vital 
spirit has long since departed out of this form once so 
kingly, and the great seal has been in commission long 20 
enough; but meanwhile the soul of man, from wliich all 
power emanates and to which it reverts, still survives in 
undiminished royalty; God still survives, little as you 
gentlemen of the Commission seem to be aware of it, — 
nay, may possibly outline the whole of you, incredible as 25 
it may appear. The truth is, that both Scotch Presbyte- 
rianism and New England Puritanism made their new 
avatar in Carlyle and Emerson, the heralds of their formal 
decease, and the tendency of the one toward Authority 
and of the other toward Independency might have been 30 
prophesied by whoever had studied history. The neces- 



94 EARLIER ESSAYS 

sity was not so much in the men as in the principles they 
represented and the traditions which overruled them. 
The Puritanism of the past found its unwilhng poet in 
Hawthorne, the rarest creative imagination of the century, 
5 the rarest in some ideal respects since Sha^kespeare ; but the 
Puritanism that cannot die, the Puritanism that made 
New England what it is, and is destined to make America 
what it should be, found its voice in Emerson. Though 
holding liimself aloof from all active partnersliip in move- 

lo ments of reform, he has been the sleeping partner who has 
supphed a great part of their capital. 

The artistic range of Emerson is narrow, as every well-read 
critic must feel at once ; and so is that of ^schylus, so is 
that of Dante, so is that of Montaigne, so is that of Schiller, 

IS so is that of nearly every one except Shakespeare ; but 
there is a gauge of height no less than of breadth, of indi\'id- 
uahty as well as of comprehensiveness, and, above all, 
there is the standard of genetic power, the test of the 
mascuHne as distinguished from the receptive minds. 

20 There are staminate plants in literature, that make no fine 
show of fruit, but without whose pollen, the quintessence 
of fructif3dng gold, the garden had been barren. Emer- 
son's mind is emphatically one of these, and there is no 
man to whom our aesthetic culture owes so much. The 

25 Puritan revolt had made us ecclesiastically, and the Rev- 
olution pohtically independent, but we were still socially 
and intellectually moored to EngHsh thought, till Emerson 
cut the cable and gave us a chance at the dangers and the 
glories of blue water. No man young enough to have felt 

30 it can forget, or cease to be grateful for, the mental and 
moral nudge which he received from the writings of his 



EARLIER ESSAYS 95 

high-minded and brave-spirited countryman. That we 
agree with him, or that he always agrees with himself, is 
aside from the question ; but that he arouses in us some- 
thing that we are the better for having awakened, whether 
that something be of opposition or assent, that he speaks 5 
always to what is highest and least selfish in us, few Ameri- 
cans of the generation younger than his own would be 
disposed to deny. His oration before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society" at Cambridge, some thirty years ago, was an 
event without any former parallel in our literary annals, a 10 
scene to be alwaj^s treasured in the memory for its pictur- 
esqueness and its inspiration. Wliat crowded and breath- 
less aisles, what windows clustering with eager heads, what 
enthusiasm of approval, what grim silence of foregone 
dissent ! It was our Yankee version of a lecture by 15 
Abelard,° our Harvard parallel to the last pubHc appear- 
ances of Fichte.° 

We said that the '' Transcendental Movement" was the 
protestant spirit of Puritanism seeking a new outlet and 
an escape from forms and creeds which compressed rather 20 
than expressed it. In its motives, its preaching, and its 
results, it differed radically from the doctrine of Carlyle. 
The Scotchman, with all his genius, and his humor gigan- 
tesque as that of Rabelais, ° has grown shriller and shriller 
with years, degenerating sometimes into a common scold, 25 
and emptjdng very unsavory \ials of wrath on the head of 
the sturdy British Socrates of worldly common-sense. 
The teaching of Emerson tended much more exclusively 
to self-culture and the independent development of the 
individual man. It seemed to many almost Pythagorean^ 30 
in its voluntary seclusion from commonwealth affairs. 



96 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Both Carlyle and Emerson were disciples of Goethe, but 
Emerson in a far truer sense ; and wliile the one, from his 
bias toward the eccentric, has degenerated more and more 
into mannerism, the other has clarified steadily toward 

5 perfection of style, — exquisite fineness of material, 
unobtrusive lowness of tone and simplicity of fasliion, the 
most high-bred garb of expression. Whatever may be 
said of this thought, nothing can be finer than the dehcious 
limpidness of his phrase. If it was ever questionable 

lo whether democracy could develop a gentleman, the 
problem has been affirmatively solved at last. Carlyle, 
in Ms cynicism and his admiration of force as such, has 
become at last positively inhuman ; Emerson, reverencing 
strength, seeking the highest outcome of the individual, 

15 has found that society and poHtics are also main elements 
in the attainment of the desired end, and has drawn 
steadily manward and worldward. The two men repre- 
sent respectively those grand personifications in the drama 
of iEschylus, /8ta and KpdTo<s° 

20 Among the pistillate plants kindled to fruitage by the 
Emersonian pollen, Thoreau is thus far the most remark- 
able ; and it is something eminently fitting that his post- 
humous works should be offered us by Emerson, for they 
are strawberries from his own garden. A singular mixture 

25 of varieties, indeed, there is, — alpine, some of them, with 
the flavor of rare mountain air; others wood, tasting of 
sunny roadside banks or shy openings in the forest ; and 
not a few seedlings swollen hugely by culture, but lacking 
the fine natural aroma of the more modest kinds. Strange 

30 books these are of his, and interesting in many ways, — 
instructive chiefly as showing how considerable a crop 



EARLIER ESSAYS 97 

may be raised on a comparatively narrow close of mind, 
and how much a man may make of his life if he will as- 
siduously follow it, though perhaps never truly finding it 
at last. 

We have just been renewing our recollection of Mr. 5 
Thoreau's writings, and have read through his six volumes 
in the order of their production. We shall try to give an 
adequate report of their impression upon us both as critic 
and as mere reader. He seems to us to have been a man 
with so high a conceit of himself that he accepted without 10 
questioning, and insisted on our accepting, his defects 
and weaknesses of character as virtues and powers pecuHar 
to liimself . Was he indolent, he finds none of the activities 
which attract or employ the rest of mankind worthy of 
him. Was he wanting in the quahties that make success, 15 
it is success that is contemptible, and not himself that lacks 
persistency and purpose. Was he poor, money was an un- 
mixed evil. Did his Hfe seem a selfish one, he condemns 
doing good as one of the weakest of superstitions. To be 
of use was with him the most kilHng bait of the wily tempter 20 
Uselessness. He had no faculty of generahzation from 
outside of himself, or at least no experience which would 
supply the material of such, and he makes his own whim 
the law, his own range the horizon of the universe. He 
condemns a world, the hoUowness of whose satisfactions 25 
he had never had the means of testing, and we recognize 
Apemantus° behind the mask of Timon. He had Uttle 
active imagination ; of the receptive he had much. His 
appreciation is of the highest quaUty; his critical power 
from want of continuity of mind, very limited and in- 30 
adequate. He somewhere cites a simile from Ossian,° as 



98 EARLIER ESSAYS 

an example of the superiority of the old poetry to the new, 
though, even were the historic evidence less convincing, 
the sentimental melancholy of those poems should be 
conclusive of their modernness. He had no artistic power 

s such as controls a great work to the serene balance of com- 
pleteness, but exquisite mechanical sldll in the shaping of 
sentences and paragraphs, or (more rarely) short bits of 
verse for the expression of a detached thought, sentiment, 
or image. His works give one the feehng of a sky full of 

lo stars, — sometliing impressive and exhilarating certainly, 
sometliing high overhead and freckled thickly with spots of 
isolated brightness; but whether these have any mutual 
relation with each other, or have any concern with our 
mundane matters, is for the most part matter of conjecture, 

15 — astrology as yet, and not astronomy. 

It is curious, considering what Thoreau afterwards 
became, that he was not by nature an observer. He only 
saw the things he looked for, and was less poet than natural- 
ist. Till he built his Walden shanty, he did not know 

20 that the hickory grew in Concord. Till he went to Maine, 
he had never seen phosphorescent wood, a phenomenon 
early famihar to most country boys. At forty he speaks of 
the seeding of the pine as a new discovery, though one 
should have thought that its gold-dust of l)lowing pollen 

25 might have earher drawn liis eye. Neither his attention 
nor his genius was of the spontaneous kind. He discovered 
nothing. He thought everything a discovery of his own, 
from moonlight to the planting of acorns and nuts by 
squirrels. This is a defect in his character, but one of his 

30 chief charms as a writer. Everything grows fresh under 
his hand. He delved in his mind and nature ; he planted 



EARLIER ESSAYS 99 

them with all manner of native and foreign seeds, and 
reaped assiduously. He was not merely soUtary, he would 
be isolated, and succeeded at last in almost persuading 
himself that he was autochthonous. He valued every- 
thing in proportion as he fancied it to be exclusively liis 5 
own. He complains in '' Walden," that there is no one in 
Concord with whom he could talk of Oriental hterature, 
though the man was hving within two miles of liis hut who 
had introduced him to it. This intellectual selfishness 
becomes sometimes almost painful in reading him. He lo 
lacked that generosity of '^ communication" which John- 
son admired in Burke. De Quincey tells us that Words- 
worth was impatient v/hen anyone else spoke of mountains, 
as if he had a pecuhar property in them. And we can 
readily understand why it should be so : no one is satisfied is 
with another's appreciation of his mistress. But Thoreau 
seems to have prized a lofty way of thinking (often we 
should be incKned to call it a remote one) not so much be- 
cause it was good in itself as because he wished few to share 
it with him. It seems now and then as if he did not seek to 20 
lure others up ^' above our lower region of turmoil," but to 
leave his own name cut on the mountain peak as the first 
cHmber. This itch of originahty infects his thought and 
style. To be misty is not to be mystic. He turns common- 
places end for end, and fancies it makes something new of 25 
them. As we walk down Park Street, our eye is caught by 
Dr. Windship'-s dumb-bells, one of wliich bears an inscrip- 
tion testifying that it is the heaviest ever put up at arm's 
length by any athlete ; and in reading Mr. Thoreau's books 
we cannot help feeling as if he sometimes invited our atten- 30 
tion to a particular sophism or paradox as the biggest yet 



100 EARLIER ESSAY'S 

maintained by any single writer. He seeks, at all risks, 
for perversity of thought, and revives the age of concetti° 
while he fancies himself going back to a pre-classical nature. 
''A day," he says, ''passed in the society of those Greek 
5 sages, such as described in the Banquet of Xenophon, 
would not be comparable mth the dry wit of decayed cran- 
berry-vines and the fresh Attic salt of the moss-beds." 
It is not so much the True that he loves as the Out-of-the- 
Way. As the Brazen Age° shows itself in other men by 

lo exaggeration of phrase, so in him by extravagance of 
statement. He wishes always to trump your suit and to 
ruff when you least expect it. Do you love Nature because 
she is beautiful? He will find a better argument in her 
ughness. Are you tired of the artificial man? He in- 

15 stantly dresses you up an ideal in a Penobscot Indian, and 
attributes to this creature of his otherwise-mindedness 
as peculiarities things that are common to all woodsmen, 
white or red, and this simply because he has not studied 
the pale-faced variety. 

20 This notion of an absolute originahty, as if one could 
have a patent right in it, is an absurdity. A man cannot 
escape in thought, any more than he can in language, 
from the past and the present. As no one ever invents a 
word, and yet language somehow grows by general con- 

25 tribution and necessity, so it is with thought. Mr. Thoreau 
seems to us to insist in public on going back to flint and 
steel, when there is a match-box in his pocket which he 
knows very well how to use at a pinch. Originality con- 
sists in power of digesting and assimilating thought, so 

30 that they become part of our life and substance. Mon- 
taigne, ° for example, is one of the most original of authors, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 101 

though he helped himself to ideas in every direction. But 
they turn to blood and coloring in his style, and give a 
freshness of complexion that is forever charming. In 
Thoreau much seems yet to be foreign and unassimilated, 
showing itself in symptoms of indigestion. A preacher-up 5 
of Nature, we now and then detect under the surly and 
stoic garb something of the sophist and the sentimentalizer. 
We are far from implying that this was conscious on his 
part. But it is much easier for a man to impose on himself 
when he measures only with himself. A greater familiarity 10 
with ordinary men would have done Thoreau good, by 
showing him how many fine qualities are common to the 
race. The radical vice of this theory of life was, that he 
confounded physical with spiritual remoteness from men. 
One is far enough withdrawn from his fellows if he keep 15 
himself clear of their weaknesses. He is not so truly with- 
drawn as exiled, if he refuse to share in their strength. 
It is a morbid self-consciousness that pronounces the world 
of men empty and worthless before trying it, the instinctive 
evasion of one who is sensible of some innate weakness, and 20 
retorts the accusation of it before any has made it but him- 
self. To a healthy mind, the world is a constant challenge 
of opportunity. Mr. Thoreau had not a healthy mind, 
or he would not have been so fond of prescribing. His 
whole life was a search for the doctor. The old mystics had 25 
a wiser sense of what the world was worth. They or- 
dained a severe apprenticeship to law, and even ceremo- 
nial, in order to the gaining of freedom and mastery over 
these. Seven years of service for Rachel were to be re- 
warded at last with Leah. Seven other years of faithful- 3° 
ness with her were to win them at last the true bride of 



102 EARLIER ESSAYS 

their souls. Active Life was with them the only path to 
the Contemplative. 

Thoreau had no humor, and this implies that he was a 
sorry logician. Himself an artist in rhetoric, he confounds 

5 thought with style when he undertakes to speak of the 
latter. He was forever talking of getting away from the 
world, but he must be alwa^^s near enough to it, nay, to 
the Concord corner of it, to feel the impression he makes 
there. He verifies the shrewd remark of Sainte-Beuve, 

lo "On touche encore a son temps et tres-fort, meme quand 
on le repousse. "° Tlii^ egotism of his is a Styhtes° pillar 
after all, a seclusion which keeps him in the public eye. 
The dignity of man is an excellent thing, but therefore to 
hold one's self too sacred and precious is the reverse of 

15 excellent. There is something delightfully absurd in six 
volumes addressed to a world of such ''vulgar fellows" as 
Thoreau affirmed liis fellowmen to be. We once had a 
glimpse of a genuine solitary who spent his winters one 
hundred and fifty miles beyond all human communication, 

20 and there dwelt with his rifle as his only confidant. Com- 
pared with this, the shanty on Walden Pond has something 
the air, it must be confessed, of the Hermitage of La 
Chevrette.° We do not beheve that the way to a true 
cosmopolitanism carries one into the woods or the society of 

25 musquashes. Perhaps the narrowest provincialism is that 
of self ; that of Klein winkel° is nothing to it. The natural 
man, like the singing birds, comes out of the forest as in- 
evitably as the natural bear and the wild cat stick there. 
To seek to be- natural imphes a consciousness that forbids 

30 all naturalness forever. It is as easy — and no easier — to 
be natural in a salon° as in a swamp, if one do not aim at it. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 103 

for what we call unnaturalness always has its spring in a 
man's thinking too much about himself. "It is impossi- 
ble,'' said Turgot,° "for a vulgar man to be simple." 

We look upon a great deal of the modern sentimental- 
ism about Nature as a mark of disease. It is one more 5 
symptom of the general liver-complaint. In a man of . 
wholesome constitution the wilderness is well enough for a 
mood or a vacation, but not for a habit of life. Those 
who have most loudly advertised their passion for seclu- 
sion and their intimacy with nature, from Petrarch down, 10 
have been mostly sentimentaHsts, unreal men, misan- 
thropes on the spindle side, solacing an uneasy suspicion 
of themselves by professing contempt for their kind. They 
make demands on the world in advance proportioned to 
their inward measure of their own merit, and are angry is 
that the world pays only by the visible measure of perform- 
ance. It is true of Rousseau, the modern founder of the 
sect, true of Saint-Pierre, his intellectual child, and of 
Chateaubriand, his grandchild, the inventor of what we may 
call the primitive forest-cure, and who first was touched by 20 
the solemn falhng of a tree from natural decay in the wind- 
less silence of the woods. It is a very shallow view that 
affirms trees and rocks to be healthy, and cannot see that 
men in communities are just as true to the laws of their 
organization and destiny ; that can tolerate the puffin and 25 
the fox, but not the fool and the knave ; that would shun 
politics because of its demagogues, and snuff up the stench 
of the obscene fungus. The divine life of Nature is more 
wonderful, more various, more sublime in man than in any 
other of her works, and the wisdom that is gained by 30 
commerce with men, as Montaigne and Shakespeare gained 



104 EARLIER ESSAYS 

it, or with one's own soul among men, as Dante, is the most 
delightful, as it is the most precious, of all. In outward 
nature it is still man that interests us, and we care far less 
for the things seen than the way in which poetic eyes like 

5 Wordsworth's or Thoreau's see them, and the reflections 
they cast there. To hear the to-do that is often made 
over the simple fact that a man sees the image of himself 
in the outward world, one is reminded of a savage when he 
for the first time catches a gUmpse of himself in a looking- 

lo glass. ''Venerable child of Nature," we are tempted to 
say, "to whose science in the invention of the tobacco- 
pipe, to whose art in the tattooing of thine undegenerate 
hide not yet enslaved by tailors, we are slowly striving to 
climb back, the miracle thou beholdest is sold in my un- 

15 happy country for a shilhng!" If matters go on as they 
have done, and everybody must needs blab of all the favors 
that have been done him by roadside and river-brink and 
woodland walk, as if to kiss and tell were no longer treach- 
ery, it will be a positive refreshment to meet a man who 

2o is as superbly indifferent to Nature as she is to him. By 
and by we shall have John Smith, of No. — 12, — 12th 
Street, advertising that he is not the J. S. who saw a cow- 
Hly on Thursday last, as he never saw one in his Hfe, would 
not see one if he could, and is prepared to prove an aUbi 

25 on the day in question. 

SoHtary communion with Nature does not seem to have 
been sanitary or sweetening in its influence on Thoreau's 

X character. On the contrary, his letters show him more 
cynical as he^grew older. While he studied with respect- 

30 ful attention the minks and woodchucks, his neighbors, he 
looked with utter contempt on the august drama of destiny 



E A SLIER ESSAYS 105 

of which his country was the scene, and on which the cur- 
tain had already risen. He was converting us back to a 
state of nature "so eloquently," as Voltaire said of Rous- 
seau, ''that he almost persuaded us to go on all fours," 
while the wiser fates were making it possible for us to walk 5 
erect for the first time. Had he conversed more with his 
fellows, his sympathies would have widened with the assur- 
ance that his peculiar genius had more appreciation, and 
his writings a larger circle of readers, or at least a warmer 
one, than he dreamed of. We have the highest testimony 10 
to the natural sweetness, sincerity, and nobleness of his 
temper, and in his books an equally irrefragible one to 
the rare quality of liis mind. He was not a strong thinker, 
but a sensitive feeler. Yet his mind strikes us as cold 
and wintry in its purity. A Ught snow has fallen every- 15 
where in which he seems to come on the track of the shier 
sensations that would elsewhere leave no trace. We think 
greater compression would have done more for his fame. 
A feeUng of sameness comes over us as we read so much. 
Trifles are recorded with an over-minute punctuahty and 20 
conscientiousness of detail. We cannot help thinking 
sometimes of the man who 

"Watches, starves, freezes and sweats 
To learn but catechisms and alphabets 
Of unconcerning things, matters of fact," 25 

and sometimes of the saying of the Persian poet,° that 
*'when the owl would boast, he boasts of catching mice at 
the edge of a hole." We could readily part with some of 
his affectations. It was well enough for Pythagoras to 
say, once for all, ''When I was Euphorbus° at the seige of 30 



106 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Troy" ; not so well for Thoreau to travesty it into "When 
I was a shepherd on the plains of Assyria." A naive thing 
said over again is anything but naive. But with every 
exception, there is no writing comparable with Thoreau's in 

5 kind, that is comparable with it in degree where it is best ; 
where it disengages itself, that is, from the tangled roots 
and dead leaves of a second-hand Orientahsm and runs 
limpid and smooth and broadening as it runs, a mirror 
for whatever is grand and lonely in both worlds. 

lo George Sand° says neatly, that "Art is not a study of 
positive reahty," {actuality were the fitter word,) "but a 
seeking after ideal truth." It would be doing very inade- 
quate justice to Thoreau if we left it to be inferred that this 
ideal element did not exist in him, and that too in larger 

15 proportion, if less obtrusive, than his nature-worship. 
He took nature as the mountain-path to an ideal world. 
If the path wind a good deal, if he record too faithfully 
every trip over a root, if he botanize somewhat weari- 
somely, he gives lis now and then superb outlooks from 

20 some jutting crag, and brings us out at last into an inimit- 
able ether, where the breathing is not difficult for those 
who have any true touch of the cUmbing spirit. His 
shanty-life was a mere impossibility, so far as his own con- 
ception of it goes, as an entire independency of mankind. 

25 The tub of Diogenes had a sounder bottom. Thoreau's 
experiment actually presupposed all that complicated 
civiUzation which it theoretically abjured. He squatted 
on another man's land; he borrows an axe; his boards, 
his nails, liis ^bricks, his mortar, his books, his lamp, his 

30 fish-hooks, his plough, his hoe, all turn state's evidence 
against him as an accomphce in the sin of the artificial 



EARLIER ESSAYS , 107 

civilization which rendered it possible that such a person as 
Henry D. Thoreau should exist at all. Magnis tamen 
excidit ausis° His aim was a noble and a useful one, in 
the direction of ''plain Hving and high thinking." It was 
a practical sermon on Emerson's text that "things are ins 
the saddlfe and ride mankind," an attempt to solve Carlyle's 
problem of "lessening your denominator." His whole 
life was a rebuke of the waste and aimlessness of our Ameri- 
can luxury, which is an abject enslavement to tawdry up- 
holstery. He had "fine translunary things" in him. His lo 
better, style as a writer is in keeping with the simplicity 
and purity of his life. We have said that his range is nar- 
row, but to be a master is to be a master. He had caught 
his English at its hving source, among the poets and prose- 
writers of its best days ; his literature M^as extensive and 15 
recondite, his quotations are always nuggets of the purest 
ore; there are sentences of his as perfect as anything in 
the language, and thoughts as clearly crystallized; his 
metaphors and images are always fresh from the soil ; he 
had watched Nature like a detective who is to go upon the 20 
stand ; as we read liim, it seems as if all-out-of-doors had 
kept a diary and become its own Montaigne ; we look at 
the landscape as in a Claude Lorraine® glass; compared 
with his, all other books of similar aim, even White's 
Selborne, seem dry as a country clergyman's meteorological 25 
journal in an old almanac. He belongs with Donne and 
Browne and Novahs;° if not with the originally creative 
men, with the scarcely smaller class who are pecuhar, and 
whose leaves shed their invisible thought-seed like ferns. 



AT SEA° 

The sea was meant to be looked at from shore, as moun- 
tains are from the plain. Lucretius° made this discovery- 
long ago, and was blunt enough to blurt it forth, romance 
and sentiment — in other words, the pretence of feeling 

5 what we do not feel — being inventions of a later day. 
To be sure, Cicero used to twaddle about Greek Hterature 
and philosophy, much as people do about ancient art now- 
a-days; but I rather sympathize with those stout old 
Romans who despised both, and believed that to found 

lo an empire was as grand an achievement as to build an epic 
or to carve a statue. But though there might have been 
twaddle, (as why not, since there was a Senate?) I rather 
think Petrarch° was the first choragus of that sentimental 
dance which so long led young folks away from the reahties 

IS of Ufe Uke the piper of HameUn, and whose succession 
ended, let us hope, with Chateaubriand." But for them, 
Byron, whose real strength lay in his sincerity, would 
never have talked about the "sea bounding beneath him 
like a steed that knows his rider," and all that sort of thing. 

20 Even if it had been true, steam has been as fatal to that 
part of the romance of the sea as to hand-loom weaving. 
But what say you to a twelve days' calm such as we dozed 
through in mid- Atlantic and in mid- August? I know 
nothing so tedious at once and exasperating as that regular 

108 



EARLIER ESSAYS 109 

slap of the wilted sails when the ship rises and falls with 
the slow breatliing of the sleeping sea, one greasy, brassy 
swell following another, slow, smooth, immitigable as the 
series of Wordsworth's "Ecclesiastical Sonnets." Even 
at his best, Neptune, in a tete-a-tete ° has a way of repeat- 5 
ing himself, an obtuseness to the ne quid nimis° that is 
stupefying. It reminds me of organ-music and my good 
friend Sebastian Bach. A fugue or two will do very well ; 
but a concert made up of nothing else is altogether too 
epic for me. There is nothing so desperately monotonous 10 
as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. 
Fancy an existence in which the coming up of a clumsy 
finback whale, who says Pooh! to you solemnly as you lean 
over the taffrail, is an event as exciting as an election on 
shore! The dampness seems to strike into the wits as 15 
into the lucifer-matches, so that one may scratch a thought 
haK a dozen times and get nothing at last but a faint sput- 
ter, the forlorn hope of fire, which only goes far enough to 
leave a sense of suffocation behind it. Even smoking be- 
comes an employment instead of a solace. Who less likely 20 
to come to their wit's end than W. M. T.° and A. H. C.?° 
Yet I have seen them driven to five meals a day for mental 
occupation. I sometimes sit and pity Noah; but even 
he had this advantage over all succeeding navigators, that, 
wherever he landed, he was sure to get no ill news from 25 
home. He should be canonized as the patron-saint of 
newspaper correspondents, being the only man who ever 
had the very last authentic intelligence from everywhere. 
The finback whale recorded just above has much the 
look of a brown-paper parcel, — the whitish stripes that 30 
run across him answering for the pack-thread. He has a 



110 EARLIER ESSAYS 

kind of accidental hole in the top of his head, through 
which he pooh-poohs the rest of creation,, and which looks 
as if it had been made by the chance thrust of a chestnut 
rail. He was our first event. Our second was harpooning 
5 a sunfish, which basked dozing on the lap of the sea, look- 
ing so much Hke the giant turtle of an alderman's dream, 
that I am persuaded he would have made mock-turtle 
soup rather than acknowledge his imposture. But he 
broke away just as they were hauling liim over the side, 

lo and sank placidly through the clear water, leaving behind 

him a crimson trail that wavered a moment and was gone. 

The sea, though, has better sights than these. When 

we were up with the Azores, we began to meet flying-fish 

and Portuguese men-of-war beautiful as the galley of 

15 Cleopatra, tiny craft that dared these seas before Colum- 
bus. I have seen one of the former rise from the crest of 
a wave, and, glancing from another some two hundred feet 
beyond, take a fresh fhght of perhaps as long. How Cal- 
deron° would have simihzed this pretty creature had he 

20 ever seen it ! How would he have run him up and down 
the gamut of simile! If a fish, then a fish with wings; 
if a bird, then a bird with fins ; and so on, keeping up the 
poor shuttle-cock of a conceit as is his wont. Indeed, the 
poor thing is the most killing bait for a comparison, and I 

25 assure you I have three or four in my inkstand ; — but be 
calm, they shall stay there. Moore, who looked on all 
nature as a kind of Gradus ad Parnassum, a thesaurus^ of 
similitude, and spent his Hfe in a game of What is my 
thought like^ with himself, did the flying-fish on his way 

30 to Bermuda. So I leave him in peace. 

The most beautiful thing I have seen at sea, all the 



EARLIER ESSAYS " 111 

more so that I had never heard of it, is the trail of a shoal 
of fish through the phosphorescent water. It is like a 
flight of silver rockets, or the streaming of northern lights 
through that silent nether heaven. I thought nothing 
could go beyond that rustling star-foam which was churned 5 
up by our ship's bows, or those eddies and disks of dreamy 
flame that rose and wandered out of sight behind us. 

'Twas fire our ship was plunging through, 

Cold fire that o'er the quarter flew ; 

And wandering moons of idle flame lo 

Grew full and waned, and went and came, 

Dappling with light the huge sea-snake 

That slid behind us in the wake. 

But there was something even more delicately rare in the 
apparition of the fish, as they turned up in gleaming fur- 15 
rows the latent moonshine which the ocean seemed to have 
hoarded against these vacant interlunar nights. In the 
Mediterranean one day, as we were lying becalmed, I ob- 
served the water freckled with dingy specks, which* at last 
gathered to a pinkish scum on the surface. The sea had 20 
been so phosphorescent for some nights, that when the 
Captain gave me my bath, by dousing me with buckets 
from the house on deck, the spray flew off my head and 
shoulders in sparks. It occurred to me that this dirty- 
looking scum might be the luminous matter, and I had a 25 
pailful dipped up to keep till after dark. When I went 
to look at it after nightfall, it seemed at first perfectly 
dead ; but when I shook it, the whole broke out into what 
I can only liken to milky flames, whose lambent silence 
was strangely beautiful, and startled me almost as actual 30 



112 EARLIER ESSAYS 

projection might an alchemist. I could not bear to be the 
death of so much beauty; so I poured it all overboard 
again. 
Another sight worth taking a voyage for is that of the 
5 sails by moonhght. Our course was ''south and by east, 
half south," so that we seemed bound for the full moon as 
she rolled up over our wavering horizon. Then I used to 
go forward to the bowsprit and look back. Our ship was 
a chpper, with every rag set, stunsails, sky-scrapers, and 

lo all ; nor was it easy to believe that such a wonder could 
be built of canvas as that white many-storied pile of 
cloud that stooped over me, or drew back as we rose and 
fell with the waves. 

These are all the wonders I can recall of my five weeks 

15 at sea, except the sun. Were you ever alone with the sun ? 
You think it a very simple question ; but I never was, in 
the full sense of the word, till I was held up to him one 
cloudless day on the broad buckler of the ocean. I sup- 
pose one might have the same feeling in the desert. I 

20 remember getting something like it years ago, when I 
climbed alone to the top of a mountain, and lay face up 
on the hot gray moss, striving to get a notion of how an 
Arab might feel. It was my American commentary of 
the Koran,° and not a bad one. In a New England winter, 

25 too, when everything is gagged with snow^ as if some gi- 
gantic physical geographer were taking a cast of the earth's 
face in plaster, the bare knob of a hill will introduce you 
to the sun as a comparative stranger. But at sea you 
may be alone with him day after day, and almost all day 

30 long. I never understood before that nothing short of 
fuU dayhght can give the supremest sense of solitude. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 113 

Darkness will not do so, for the imagination peoples it 
with more shapes than ever were poured from the frozen 
loins of the populous North. The sun, I sometimes think, 
is a little grouty° at sea, especially at high noon, feeling 
that he wastes his beams on those fruitless furrows. It is 5 
otherwise with the moon. She ''comforts the night," as 
Chapman° finely says, and I always found her a com- 
panionable creature. 

In the ocean-horizon I took untiring delight. It is the 
true magic-circle of expectation and conjecture, — almost 10 
as good as a wishing-ring. What will rise over that edge 
we sail toward daily and never overtake? A sail? an 
island? the new shore of the Old World? Something 
rose every day, which I need not have gone so far to see, 
but at whose levee I was a much more faithful courtier 15 
than on shore. A cloudless sunrise in mid-ocean is beyond 
comparison for simple grandeur. It is like Dante's style, 
bare and perfect. Naked sun meets naked sea, the true 
classic of nature. There may be more sentiment in morn- 
ing on shore, — the shivering fairy-jewelry of de\^, the 20 
silver point-lace of sparkhng hoar-frost, — but there is 
also more complexity, more of the romantic. The one 
savors of the elder Edda,° the other of the Minnesingers." 

And I thus floating, lonely elf, 

A kind of planet by myself, 25 

The mists draw up and furl away, 

And in the east a warming gray, 

Faint as the tint of oaken woods 

When o'er their buds May breathes and broods, 

Tells that the golden sunrise-tide 30 

Is lapsing up earth's thirsty side, 



114 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Each moment purpling on the crest 

Of some stark billow farther west : 

And as the sea-moss droops and hears 

The gurgling flood that nears and nears, 
5 And then with tremulous content 

Floats out each thankful filament, 

So waited I until it came, 

God's daily miracle, — shame 

That I had seen so many days 
lo Unthankful, without wondering praise, 

Not recking more this bliss of earth 

Than the cheap fire that lights my hearth ! 

But now glad thoughts and holy pour 

Into my heart, as once a year 
IS To San Miniato's open door. 

In long procession, chanting clear, 

Through slopes of sun, through shadows hoar, 

The coupled monks slow-climbing sing, 

And like a golden censer swing 
2o From rear to front, from front to rear 

Their alternating bursts of praise. 

Till the roof's fading seraphs gaze 

Down through an odorous mist, that crawls 

Lingeringly up the darkened walls, 
25 And the dim arches, silent long, 

Are startled with triumphant song, 

I wrote yesterday that the sea still rimmed our prosy 
lives with mystery and conjecture. But one is shut up 
on shipboard like Montaigne in his tower, with nothing to 
30 do but to review his own thoughts and contradict himself. 
Dire, redire, et me contredire° will be the staple of my jour- 
nal till I see land. I say nothing of such matters as the 
montagna bruna° on which Ulysses wrecked ; but since the 



EARLIER ESSAYS 115 

sixteenth century could any man reasonably hope to stum- 
ble on one of those wonders which were cheap as dirt in the 
days of St. Saga? Faustus, Don Juan, and Tanhauser° 
are the last ghosts of legend, that lingered almgst till the 
Gallic cock-crow of universal enlightenment and disillusion, s 
The Public School has done for Imagination. What shall 
I see in Outre-Mer,° or on the way thither, but what can 
be seen with eyes ? To be sure, I stick by the sea-serpent, 
and would fain believe that science has scotched, not 
killed, him. Nor is he to be lightl}^ given up, for, like the lo 
old Scandinavian snake, he binds together for us the two 
hemispheres of Past and Present, of BeUef and Science. 
He is the link which knits us seaboard Yankees with our 
Norse progenitors, interpreting between the age of the 
dragon and that of the railroad-train. We have made 15 
ducks and drakes of that large estate of wonder and de- 
light bequeathed to us by ancestral vikings, and this alone 
remains to us unthrift heirs of Linn. 

I feel an undefined respect for a man who has seen the 
sea-serpent. He is to his brother-fishers what the poet 20 
is to his fellow-men. Where they have seen nothing better 
than a school of horse-mackerel, or the idle coils of ocean 
around Half-way Rock, he has caught authentic glimpses 
of the withdrawing mantle-hem of the Edda age. I care 
not for the monster himself. It is not the thing, but the 25 
behef in the thing, that is dear to me. May it be long be- 
fore Professor Owen° is comforted with the sight of his un- 
fleshed vertebrae, long before they stretch many a rood 
behind Kimball's or Barnum's glass, reflected in the shal- 
low orbs of Mr. and Mrs. PubHc, which stare, but see not ! 30 
When we read that Captain Spalding, of the pink-stern 



116 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Three Follies, has beheld him rushing through the brine 
like an infinite series of bewitched mackerel-casks, we feel 
that the mystery of old Ocean, at least, has not yet been 
sounded, -7— that Faith and Awe survive there unevapo- 
5 rate. I once ventured the horse-mackerel theory to an 
old fisherman, browner than a tomcod. ''Hos-mackril!" 
he exclaimed indignantly, ''hos-mackril be — " (here he 
used a phrase commonly indicated in laical literature by 
the same sign which serves for Doctorate in Divinity,) 

10 "don't yer spose I know a hos-mackril ? " The intonation 
of that "/" would have silenced Professor Monkbarns 
Owen with his provoking yhoca forever. What if one 
should ask him if he knew a trilobite ? 

The fault of modern travellers is, that they see nothing 

15 out of sight. They talk of eocene periods and tertiary 
formations, and tell us how the world looked to the plesio- 
saur. They take science (or nescience) with them, instead 
of that soul of generous trust their elders had. All their 
senses are sceptics and doubters, materialists reporting 

20 things for other sceptics to doubt still further upon. Nature 
becomes a reluctant witness upon the stand, badgered 
with geologist hammers and phials of acid. There have 
been no travellers since those included in Hakluyt and 
Purchas,° except Martin, perhaps, who saw an inch or two 

25 into the invisible at the Orkneys. We have peripatetic 
lecturers, but no more travellers. Travellers' stories are 
no longer proverbial. We have picked nearly every apple 
(wormy or otherwise) from the world's tree of knowledge, 
and that without an Eve to tempt us. Two or three have 

30 hitherto hung lucidly beyond reach on a lofty bough shad- 
owing the interior of Africa, but there is a German Doctor 



EARLIER ESSAYS 111 

at this very moment pelting at them with sticks and 
stones. It may be only next week, and these too, bitten 
by geographers and geologists, will be thrown away. 

Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is 
subjected to chemic tests. We must have exact knowl-s 
edge, a cabinet stuck full of facts pressed, dried, or pre- 
served in spirits, instead of the large, vague world our 
fathers had. With them science was poetry; with us, 
poetry is science. Our modern Eden is a hortus siccus ° 
Tourists defraud rather than enrich us. They have not lo 
that sense of aesthetic proportion which characterized the 
elder traveller. Earth is no longer the fine work of art it 
was, for nothing is left to the imagination. Job Hortop, 
arrived at the height of the Bermudas, thinks it full time 
to indulge us in a merman. Nay, there is a story told by 15 
Webster, in his ''Witchcraft," of a merman with a mitre, 
who, on being sent back to his watery diocese of finland, 
made what advances he could toward an episcopal bene- 
diction by bowing his head thrice. Doubtless he had 
been consecrated by St. Antony of Padua.° A dumb 20 
bishop would be sometimes no unpleasant phenomenon, 
by the way. Sir John Hawkins° is not satisfied with tell- 
ing us about the merely sensual Canaries, but is generous 
enough to throw us in a handful of " certain fhtting islands " 
to boot. Henry Hawkes describes the visible Mexican 25 
cities, and then is not so frugal but that he can give us a 
few invisible ones. Thus do these generous ancient mariners 
make children of us again. Their successors show us an 
earth effete and past bearing, tracing out with the eyes of 
industrious fleas every wrinkle and crowfoot. 30 

The journals of the elder navigators are prose Odysseys. 



118 EARLIER ESSAYS 

The geographies of our ancestors were works of fancy and 
imagination. They read poems where we yawn over items. 
Their world was a huge wonder-horn, exhaustless as that 
which Thor° strove to drain. Ours would scarce quench 
5 the small thirst of a bee. No modern voyager brings 
back the magical foundation-stones of a Tempest. No 
Marco Polo,° traversing the desert beyond the city of Lok, 
would tell of things able to inspire the mind of Milton with 

"Calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire, 
lo And airy tongues that syllable men's names 

On sands and shores and desert wildernesses." 

It was easy enough to believe the story of Dante, when 
two thirds of even the upper-world were yet untraversed 
and unmapped. With every step of the recent traveller 

IS our inheritance of the wonderful is diminished. Those 
beautifully^ pictured notes of the Possible are redeemed at 
a ruinous discount in the hard and cumbrous coin of the 
Actual. How are we not defrauded and impoverished? 
Does California vie with El Dorado ?° or are Bruce's° 

20 Abyssinian kings a set-off for Prester John? A bird in 
the bush is worth two in the hand. And if the philosophers 
have not even yet been able to agree whether the world 
has any existence independent of ourselves, how do we 
not gain a loss in every addition to the catalogue of 

25 Vulgar Errors? Where are the fishes which nidificated 
in trees? Where the monopodes sheltering themselves 
from the sun^ beneath their single umbrella-Uke foot, — 
umbrella-hke in everything but the fatal necessity of being 
borrowed? Where the Acephah,° with whom Herodotus, 

30 in a kind of ecstasy, wound up his climax of men with 



, EARLIER ESSAYS 119 

abnormal top-pieces? Where the Roc° whose eggs are 
possibly boulders, needing no far-fetched theory of glacier 
or iceberg to account for them ? Where the tails of the 
men of Kent ?° Where the no legs of the bird of paradise ? 
Where the Unicorn, ° with that single horn of his, sovereign 5 
against all manner of poisons? Where the Fountain of 
Youth ?° Where that Thessalian° spring, which, without 
cost to the country, convicted and punished perjurers? 
Where the Amazons of Orellana ?° All these, and a thou- 
sand other varieties, we have lost, and have got nothing 10 
instead of them. And those who have robbed us of them 
have stolen that which not enriches themselves. It is 
so much wealth cast into the sea beyond all approach of 
diving-bells. We owe no thanks to Mr. J. E. Worcester, 
whose Geography we studied enforcedly at school. Yet 15 
even he had his relentings, and in some softer moment 
vouchsafed us a fine, inspiring print of the Maelstrom, ° 
answerable to the twenty-four mile diameter of its suction. 
Year by year, more and more of the world gets disen- 
chanted. Even the icy privacy of the arctic and antarctic 20 
circles is invaded. Our youth are no longer ingenious, as 
indeed no ingenuity is demanded of them. Everything 
is accounted for, everything cut and dried, and the world 
may be put together as easily as the fragments of a dis- 
sected map. The Mysterious bounds nothing now on 25 
the North, South, East, or West. We have played Jack 
Horner with our earth, till there is never a plum left in it. 



IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

The first sight of a shore so historical as that of Europe 
gives an American a strange thrill. What we always feel 
the artistic want of at home, is background. It is all idle 
to say we are Englishmen, and that English history is ours 
5 too. It is precisely in this that we are not Englishmen, 
inasmuch as we only possess their history through our 
minds, and not by life-long association with a spot and an 
idea we call England. History without the soil it grew 
in, is more instructive than inspiring, — an acquisition, 

lo and not an inheritance. It is laid away in our memories, 
and does not run in our veins. Surely, in all that concerns 
aesthetics, Europeans have us at an immense advantage. 
They start at a point which we arrive at after weary years, 
for literature is not shut up in books, nor art in galleries : 

15 both are taken in by unconscious absorption through the 
finer pores of mind and character in the atmosphere of 
society. We are not yet out of our Crusoe-hood, and must 
make our own tools as best we may. Yet I think we shall 
find the good of it one of these days, in being thrown back 

20 more wholly on nature ; and our literature, when we have 
learned to feel our own strength, and to respect our own 
thought because it is ours, and not because the European 
Mrs. Grundy° agrees with it, will have a fresh flavor and 
a strong body that will recommend it, especially as what 

120 



EARLIER ESSAYS 121 

we import is watered more and more liberally with every 
vintage. 

My first glimpse of Europe was the shore of Spain. 
Since we got into the Mediterranean, we have been be- 
calmed for some days within easy view of it. All along 5 
are fine mountains, brown all day, and with a bloom on 
them at sunset like that of a ripe plum. Here and there 
at their feet little white towns are sprinkled along the edge 
of the water, Uke the grains of rice dropped by the princess 
in the story. Sometimes we see larger buildings on the 10 
mountain slopes, probably convents. I sit and wonder 
whether the farther peaks may not be the Sierra Morena 
(the rusty saw) of Don Quixote.° I resolve that they 
shall be, and am content. Surely latitude and longitude 
never showed me any particular respect, that I should be 15 
over-scrupulous with them. 

But after all. Nature, though she may be more beautiful, 
is nowhere so entertaining as in man, and the best thing I 
have seen and learned at sea is our Chief Mate. My first 
acquaintance with liim was made over my knife, which 20 
he asked to look at, and, after a critical examination, 
handed back to me, saying, "I shouldn't wonder if that 
'ere was a good piece o' stuff." Since then he has trans- 
ferred a part of his regard for my knife to its owner. I 
like folks who hke an honest bit of steel, and take no in- 25 
terest whatever in ''your Raphaels, Correggios,° and stuff. " 
There is always more than the average human nature in 
, a man who has a hearty sympathy with iron. It is a 
manly metal, with no sordid associations like gold and 
silver. My sailor fully came up to my expectation on 30 
further acquaintance. He might well be called an old 



122 EARLIER ESSAYS 

salt who had been wrecked on Spitzbergen° before I was 
born. He was not an American, but I should never have 
guessed it by his speech, which was the purest Cape Cod, 
and I reckon myself a good taster of dialects. Nor was 
5 he less Americanized in all his thoughts and feelings, a 
singular proof of the ease with which our omnivorous 
country assimilates foreign matter, provided it be Prot- 
estant, for he was a man ere he became an American 
citizen. He used to walk the deck with his hands in his 

lo pockets, in seeming abstraction, but nothing escaped his 
eye. How he saw, I could never make out, though I had 
a theory that it was with Ms elbows. After he had taken 
me (or my knife) into his confidence, he took care that I 
should see whatever he deemed of interest to a landsman. 

15 Without looking up, he would say, suddenly, ''Ther's a 
whale blowin' clearn up to win'ard," or, ''Them's porpises 
to leeward: that means change o' wind." He is as im- 
pervious to cold as a polar bear, and paces the deck during 
his watch much as one of those yellow hummocks goes 

20 slumping up and down his cage. On the Atlantic, if the 
wind IdIgw a gale from the northeast, and it was cold as 
an English summer, he was sure to turn out in a cahco 
shirt and trousers, his furzy brown chest half bare, and 
shppers, without stockings. But lest you might fancy 

25 this to have chanced by defect of wardrobe, he comes out 
in a monstrous pea-jacket here in the Mediterranean, when 
the evening is so hot that Adam would have been glad to 
leave off his fig-leaves. ''It's a kind o' damp and unwhole- 
some in these ere waters," he says, evidently regarding 

30 the Midland Sea as a vile standing pool, in comparison with 
the bluff ocean. At meals he is superb, not only for his 



EARLIER ESSAYS 123 

strengths, but his weaknesses. He has some how or other 
come to think me a wag, and if I ask him to pass the butter, 
detects an occult joke, and laughs as much as is proper for 
a mate. For you must know that our social hierarchy on 
sliipboard is precise, and the second mate, were he present, s 
would only laugh half as much as the first. Mr. X. always 
combs his hair, and works himself into a black frock-coat 
(on Sundays he adds a waistcoat) before he comes to meals, 
sacrificing liimself nobly ^nd painfully to the social pro- 
prieties. The second mate, on the other hand, who eats lo 
after us, enjoys the privilege of shirt-sleeves, and is, I 
think, the happier man of the two. We do not have seats 
above and below the salt, as in old time, but above and 
below the white sugar. Mr. X. always takes brown sugar, 
and it is delightful to see how he ignores the existence of is 
certain dehcates wliich he considers above his grade, tip- 
ping his head on one side with an air of abstraction, so 
that he may seem not to deny himself, but to omit helping 
himself from inadvertence or absence of mind. At such 
times he wrinkles his forehead in a peculiar manner, in- 20 
scrutable at first as a cuneiform inscription, but as easily 
read after you once get the key. The sense of it is some- 
thing like this : "I, X., know my place, a height of wis- 
dom attained by few. Whatever you may think, I do not 
see that currant jelly, nor that preserved grape. Es- 25 
pecially, a kind Providence has made me bhnd to bowls of 
white sugar, and deaf to the pop of champagne corks. It 
is much that a merciful compensation gives me a sense of 
the dingier hue of Havana, and the muddier gurgle of beer. 
Are there potted meats? My physician has ordered me 30 
three pounds of minced salt- junk at every meal." There ^ 



124 EARLIER ESSAYS 

is such a thing, you know, as a ship's husband : X. is the 
ship's poor relation. 

As I have said, he takes also a below-the-white-sugar 
interest in the jokes, laughing by precise point of compass, 
5 just as he would lay the ship's course, all yawing being out 
of the question with liis scrupulous decorum at the helm. 
Once or twice I have got the better of him, and touched 
him off into a kind of compromised explosion, hke that of 
damp fireworks, that splutter and simmer a little, and 

lo then go out with painful slowness and occasional relapses. 
But his fuse is always of the unwilhngest, and you must 
blow your match, and touch him off again and again with 
the same joke. Or rather, you must magnetize him many 
times to get him en rapport° with a jest. This once accom- 

15 plished, you have him, and one bit of fun will last the 
whole voyage. He prefers those of one syllable, the a-b 
abs of humor. The gradual fattening of the steward, a 
benevolent mulatto with whiskers and ear-rings, who 
looks as if he had been meant for a woman, and had be- 

2o come a man by accident, as in some of those stories of the 
elder physiologists, is an abiding topic of humorous com- 
ment with Mr. X. "That 'ere stooard," he says, with a 
brown grin like what you might fancy on the face of a 
serious and aged seal, '"s agittin' as fat's a porpis. He 

25 was as thin's a shingle when he come aboord last v'yge. 
Them trousis'll bust yit. He don't darst take 'em off 
nights, for the whole ship's company couldn't git him into 
'em agin." Aad then he turns aside to enjoy the intensity 
of his emotion by himself, and you hear at intervals low 

3orumbUngs, an indigestion of laughter. He tells me of 
St. Elmo's fires,° Marvell's corposants ° though with him 



EARLIER ESSAYS 125 

the original corpos santos has suffered a" sea change, and 
turned to comepleasants, pledges of fine weather. I shall 
not soon find a pleasanter companion. It is so dehghtful 
to meet a man who knows just what you do not. Nay, I 
think the tired mind finds something in plump ignorance 5 
like what the body feels in cushiony moss. Talk of the 
sympathy of kindred pursuits! It is the sympathy of 
the upper and nether millstones, both forever grinding 
the same grist, and wearing each other smooth. One has 
not far to seek for book-nature, artist-nature, every variety 10 
of superinduced nature, in short, but genuine human-nature 
is hard to find. And how good it is! Wholesome as a 
potato, fit company for any dish. The freemasonry of 
cultivated men is agreeable, but artificial, and I hke better 
the natural grip with which manhood recognizes man- 15 
hood. 

X. has one good story, and with that I leave him, wish- 
ing him with all my heart that little inland farm at last 
which is his calenture as he paces the windy deck. One 
evening, when the clouds looked wild and whirUng, I asked 20 
X. if it was coming on to blow. "No, I guess not," said 
he; ''bumby the moon'll be up, and scoff away that 'ere 
loose stuff." His intonation set the phrase "scoff away" 
in quotation-marks as plain as print. So I put a query 
in each eye, and he went on. "Ther' was a Dutch cappen 25 
onct, an' his mate come to him in the cabin, where he sot 
takin' his schnapps, an' says, 'Cappen, it's agittin' thick 
an' looks kin' o' squally ; hedn't we's good's shorten sail ? ' 
'Gimmy my alminick,' says the cappen. So he looks at 
it a spell, an' says he, ' The moon's due in less'n half an 30 
hour, an' she'll scoff away ev'ythin' clare agin.' So the 



126 EARLIER ESSAYS 

mate he goes, an' bumby down he comes agin, an' says, 
'Cappen, this 'ere's the allfiredest, powerfullest moon't 
ever you did see. She's scoffed away the maintogallants'l, 
an' she's to work on the foretops'l now. Guess you'd 

5 better look in the alminick agin, an' fin' out when this moon 
sets.' So the cappen thought 'twas 'bout time to go on 
deck. Dreadful slow them Dutch cappens be." And X. 
walked away, rumbUng inwardly, like the rote of the sea 
heard afar. 

lo And so we arrived at Malta. Did you ever hear of one 
of those eating-houses, where, for a certain fee, the guest 
has the right to make one thrust with a fork into a huge 
pot, in wliich the whole dinner is bubbUng, getting per- 
haps a bit of boiled meat, or a potato, or else nothing? 

15 Well, when the great caldron of war is seething, and the 
nations stand round it striving to fish out something to 
their purpose from the mess, Britannia always has a great 
advantage in her trident. Malta is one of the titbits she 
has impaled with that awful implement. I was not sorry 

20 for it, when I reached my clean inn, with its kindly Eng- 
hsh landlady. 



ITALY 

The impulse which sent the Edelmann Storg and me to 
Subiaco° was given something Hke two thousand years 
ago. Had we not seen the Ponte Sant' Antonio, ° we 
should not have gone to Subiaco at this particular time; 
and had the Romans been worse masons, or more ignorant s 
of hydrodynamics than they were, we should never have 
seen the Ponte Sant' Antonio. But first we went to 
Tivoh,° — two carriage-loads of us, a very agreeable 
mixture of EngHsh, Scotch, and Yankees, — on Tuesday, 
the 20th April. I shall not say anything about TivoU. lo 
A water-fall in type is Hkely to be a trifle stiffish. Old 
association and modern beauty; nature and artifice; 
worship that has passed away and the religion that abides 
forever ; the green gush of the deeper torrent and the white 
evanescence of innumerable cascades, delicately palpitant 15 
as a fall of northern lights; the descendants of Sabine° 
pigeons flashing up to immemorial dove-cots, for centuries 
inaccessible to man, trooping with noisy rooks and daws ; 
the fitful roar and the silently hovering iris, which, borne 
by the wind across the face of the cliff, transmutes the 20 
travertine to momentary opal, and whose dimmer ghost 
haunts the moonhght, — as well attempt to describe to a 
Papuan° savage that wondrous ode° of Wordsworth which 
rouses and stirs in the soul all its dormant instincts of 
resurrection as with a sound of the last trumpet. ^No, it 25 

127 



128 EARLIER ESSAYS 

is impossible. Even Byron's° pump sucks sometimes, 

- and gives an unpleasant dry wheeze, especially, it seems 
to me, at Terni.° It is guide-book poetry, enthusiasm 
manufactured by the yard, which the hurried traveller 
5 (John and Jonathan are always in a hurry when they turn 
peripatetics) puts on when he has not a rag of private 
imagination to cover his nakedness withal. It must be a 
queer Idnd of love that could "watch madness with un- 
alterable mien," when the patient, whom any competent 

lo physician would have ordered into a strait-waistcoat long 
ago, has sliivered himself to powder down a precipice. 
But there is no madness in the matter. Velino° goes over 
in his full senses, and knows perfectly well that he shall 
not be hurt, that his broken fragments will reunite more 

15 gUbly than the head and neck of Orrilo.° He leaps exult- 
ant, as to his proper doom and fulfilment, and out of the 
mere waste and spray of his glory the god of sunshine 
and song builds over the crowning moment of his destiny 
a triumphal arch beyond the reach of time and of decay. 

20 But Milton is the only man who has got much poetry out 
of a cataract, — and that was a cataract in his eye. 

The first day we made the Giro° coming back to a 
merry dinner at the Sibilla° in the evening. Then we had 
some special tea, — for the Italians think tea-drinldng 

25 the chief religious observance of the Inglesi° — and then 
we had fifteen pauls' worth of illumination, which wrought 
a sudden change in the scenery, like those that seem so 
matter-of-course in dreams, turning the Claude° we had 
seen in the morning into a kind of Piranesi-Rembrandt.° 

30 The illumination, by the way, which had been prefigured 
to us by the enthusiastic Itahan who conducted it as some- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 129 

thing second only to the Girandola° turned out to be one 
blue-Hght and two armfuls of straw. 

The Edelmann Storg is not fond of pedestrian locomo- 
tion, — nay, I have even sometimes thought that he 
looked upon the invention of legs as a private and per- 5 
sonal wrong done to himself. I am quite sure that he in- 
wardly believes them to have been a consequence of the 
fall, and that the happier Pre-Adamites were monopodes, 
and incapable of any but a vehicular progression. A 
carriage, with horses and driver complete, he takes to be 10 
as simple a production of nature as a potato. But he is 
fond of sketching, and after breaMast, on the beautiful 
morning of Wednesday, the 21st, I persuaded him to walk 
out a mile or two and see a fragment of aqueduct ruin. 
It is a single glorious arch, buttressing the mountain-side 15 
upon the edge of a sharp descent to the valley of the Anio.° 
The old road to Subiaco passes under it, and it is crowned 
by a crumbling tower built in the Middle Ages (whenever 
that was) against the Gaetani.° While Storg sketched, I 
clambered. Below you, where the valley widens greenly 20 
toward other mountains, which the ripe Italian air dis- 
tances with a bloom Hke that on unplucked grapes, are 
more arches, ossified arteries of what was once the heart 
of the world. Storg's sketch was highly approved of by 
Leopoldo, our guide, and by three or four peasants, who, 25 
being on their way to their morning's work in the fields, 
had, of course, nothing in particular to do, and stopped to 
see us see the ruin. Any one who has remarked how 
grandly the Romans do nothing will be slow to beHeve 
them an effete race. Their style is as the colossal to all 30 
other, and the name of Eternal City fits Rome also, be- 



130 EARLIER ESSAYS 

cause time is of no account in it. The Roman always 
waits as if he could afford it amply, and the slow centuries 
move quite fast enough for him. Time is to other races 
the field of a task-master, which they must painfully till ; 

5 but to the Roman it is an entailed estate, which he enjoys 
and will transmit. The Neapolitan's^ laziness is that of 
a loafer; the Roman's is that of a noble. The poor 
Anglo-Saxon must count his hours, and look twice at his 
small change of quarters and minutes; but the Roman 

lo spends from a purse of Fortunatus.° His piccolo quarto 
d'ora° is like his grosso° a huge piece of copper, big enough 
for a shield, which stands only for a half -dime of our 
money. We poor fools of time always hurry as if we were 
the last type of man, the full stop with which Fate was 

15 closing the colophon of her volume, — as if we had just 
read in our newspaper, as we do of the banks on hohdays, 
(I^^ The world will close to-day at twelve o'clock, an hour 
earlier than usual. But the Roman is still an Ancient, 
with a vast future before him to tame and occupy. He 

20 and his ox and his plough are just as they were in Virgil's 
time or Ennius's.° We beat him in many things ; but in 
the impregnable fastness of his great rich nature he defies 
us. 

We got back to Tivoli, — Storg affirming that he had 

25 walked fifteen miles. We saw the Temple of Cough, 
which is not the Temple of Cough, though it might have 
been a votive structure put up by some Tiburtine Dr. 
Wistar.° We^saw the villa of Mecsenas,° which is not 
the villa of Mecsenas, and other equally satisfactory an- 

3otiques. All our Enghsh friends sketched the Citadel, of 
course, and one enthusiast attempted a likeness of the fall, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 131 

which I unhappily mistook afterward for a semblance of 
the tail of one of the horses on the Monte Cavallo . Then we 
went to the Villa d'Este, famous on Ariosto's° account, — 
and which Ariosto never saw. But the laurels were worthy 
to have made a chaplet for him, and the cypresses and the 5 
views were as fine as if he had seen them every day of his Hfe. 

Perhaps something I learned in going to see one of the 
gates of the town is more to the purpose, and may assist 
one in erecting the horoscope of Italia Unita° When 
Leopoldo first proposed to drag me through the mud to 10 
view this interesting piece of architecture, I demurred. 
But as he was very earnest about it, and as one seldom 
fails getting at a bit of character by submitting to one's 
guide, I yielded. Arrived at the spot, he put me at the 
best point of view, and said, — • ^5 

"Behold, Lordship!" 

"I see nothing out of the common," said I. 

"Lordship is kind enough here to look at a gate, the 
like of which exists not in all Ital}^, nay, in the whole world, 
— I speak not of England," for he thought me an Inglese. 20 

"I am not blind, Leopoldo; where is the miracle?" 

"Here we dammed up the waters of the Anio, first by 
artifice conducted to this spot, and letting them out upon 
the Romans, who stood besieging the town, drowned al- 
most a whole army of them. (Lordship conceives?) 25 
They suspected nothing till they found themselves all 
torn to pieces at the foot of the hill yonder, (Lordship 
conceives ?) Eh ! per Bacco !° we watered their porridge 
for them." 

Leopoldo used we as Lord Buchan did /, meaning any 30 
of his ancestors. 



132 EARLIER ESSAYS 

"But tell me a little, Leopoldo, how many years is it 
since this happened?" 

''Non saprei, signoria; ° it was in the antiquest times, 
certainly; but the Romans never come to our Fair, that 
5 we don't have blows about it, and perhaps a stab or two. 
Lordship understands ? " 

I was quite repaid for my pilgrimage. I think I under- 
stand Italian politics better for hearing Leopoldo speak 
of the Romans, whose great dome is in full sight of Tivoli, 
loas a foreign nation. But what perennial boyhood the 
whole story indicates ! 

Storg's sketch of the morning's ruin was so successful 
that I seduced him into a new expedition to the Ponte 
Sant' Antonio, another aqueduct arch about eight miles 
15 off. This was for the afternoon, and I succeeded the more 
easily, as we were to go on horseback. So I told Leopoldo 
to be at the gate of the Villa of Hadrian, at three o'clock, 
with three horses. Leopoldo's face, when I said three, 
was worth seeing; for the poor fellow had counted on 
20 nothing more than trotting beside our horses for sixteen 
miles, and getting half a dollar in the evening. Between 
doubt and hope, his face seemed to exude a kind of oil, 
which made it shine externally, after having first lubri- 
cated all the muscles inwardly. 
25 "With three horses, Lordship?" 
"Yes, three.'' 

"Lordship is very sagacious. With three horses they 
go much quicker. It is finished, then, and they will have 
the kindness to find me at the gate with the beasts, at 
30 three o'clock precisely." 

Leopoldo and I had compromised upon the term "Lord- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 133 

ship." He had found me in the morning celebrating due 
rites before the Sibyl's Temple with strange incense of the 
nicotian herb, and had marked me for his prey. At the 
very high tide of sentiment, when the traveller lies with 
oyster-like openness in the soft ooze of reverie, do these 5 
parasitic crabs, the ciceroni ° insert themselves as his in- 
separable bosom companions. Unhappy bivalve, lying 
so softly between thy two shells, of the actual and the 
possible, the one sustaining, the other widening above 
thee, till, obhvious of native mud, thou fanciest thyself 10 
a proper citizen only of the illimitable ocean which floods 
thee, — there is no escape ! Vain are thy poor crustaceous 
efforts at self -isolation. The foe henceforth is a part of 
thy consciousness, thy landscape, and thyself, happy only 
if that irritation breed in thee the pearl of patience and of 15 
voluntary abstraction. 

"Excellency wants a guide, very experienced, who has 
conducted with great mutual satisfaction many of his 
noble compatriots." 

Puff, puff, and an attempt at looking as if I did not see 20 
him. 

"Excellency will deign to look at my book of testi- 
monials. When we return. Excellency will add his own." 

Puff, puff. 

"Excellency regards the cascade, proeceps Anio° as the 25 
good Horatius called it." 

I thought of the dissolve frigus° of the landlord in Rod- 
erick Random, and could not help smiling. Leopoldo 
saw his advantage. 

"Excellency will find Leopoldo, when he shall choose 30 
to be ready." 



134 EARLIER ESSAYS 

''But I will positively not be called Excellency. I am 
not an ambassador, nor a very eminent Christian, and the 
phrase annoys me." 

''To be sure, Excell — Lordship." 
5 "I am an American." 

"Certainly, an American, Lordsliip," — as if that 
settled the matter entirely. If I had told him I was a 
Caff re, ° it would have been just as clear to him. He sur- 
rendered the "Excellency," but on general principles of 

lo human nature, I suppose, would not come a step lower 
than "Lordship." So we compromised on that. — P. S. 
It is wonderful how soon a republican ear reconciles it- 
self with syllables of this description. I think citizen 
would find greater difficulties in the way of its naturaliza- 

istion, and as for brother — ah! well, in a Christian sense, 
certainly. 

Three o'clock found us at the Villa of Hadrian. We 
had explored that incomparable ruin, and consecrated it, 
in the Homeric and Anglo-Saxon manner, by eating and 

20 drinking. Some of us sat in the shadow of one of the great 
walls, fitter for a city than a palace, over which a Nile of 
ivy, gushing from one narrow source, spread itself in 
widening inundations. A happy few Hstened to stories 
of Bagdad from Mrs. , whose silver hair gleamed, a 

25 palpable anachronism, like a snowfall in May, over that 
ever-youthful face, where the few sadder lines seemed but 
the signature of Age to a deed of quitclaim and release. 
Dear Tito, tha.t exemplary traveller who never lost a day, 
had come back from renewed explorations, convinced by 

30 the eloquent custode that Serapeion was the name of an 
ofl&cer in the Praetorian Guard. I was explaining, in ad- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 135 

dition, that Naumachia, in the Greek tongue, signified a 
place artificially drained, when the horses were announced. 

This put me to reflection. I felt, perhaps, a little as 
Mazeppa° must, when told that his steed was at the door. 
For several years I had not been on the back of a horse, 5 
and was it not more than likely that these mountains 
might produce a yet more refractory breed of these fero- 
cious animals than common? Who could tell the effect 
of grazing on a volcanic soil like that hereabout? I had 
vague recollections that the saddle nullified the laws gov- lo 
erning the impulsion of inert bodies, exacerbating the 
centrifugal forces into a virulent activity, and propor- 
tionably narcotizing the centripetal. The phrase ratio 
proportioned to the squares of the distances impressed me 
with an awe which explained to me how the laws of nature 15 
had been of old personified and worshipped. Meditating 
these things, I walked with a cheerful aspect to the gate, 
where my saddled and bridled martyrdom awaited me. 

"Eccomi qim!''° said Leopoldo, hilariously. "Gentle- 
men will be good enough to select from the three best 20 
beasts in Tivoli." 

"0, this one will serve me as well as any," said I, with 
an air of indifference, much as I have seen a gentle- 
man help himself inadvertently to the best peach in the 
dish. I am not more selfish than becomes a Christian of 25 
the nineteenth century, but I looked on this as a clear case 
of tabida in naufragio° and had noticed that the animal 
in question had that tremulous droop of the lower lip 
which indicates senility, and the abdication of the wilder 
propensities. Moreover, he was the only one provided 30 
with a curb bit, or rather with two huge iron levers which 



136 EARLIER ESSAYS 

might almost have served Archimedes" for his problem. 
Our saddles were flat cushions covered with leather, 
brought by years of friction to the highest state of poUsh. 
Instead of a pommel, a perpendicular stake, about ten 
5 inches high, rose in front, which, in case of a stumble, 
would save one's brains, at the risk of certain evisceration. 
Behind, a glary slope invited me constantly to slide over 
the horse's tail. The selfish prudence of my choice had 
well-nigh proved the death of me, for this poor old brute, 

lowith that anxiety to oblige a forestiero° which charac- 
terizes everybody here, could never make up his mind 
which of his four paces (and he had the rudiments of four 
— walk, trot, rack, and gallop) would be most agreeable 
to me. The period of transition is always unpleasant, 

IS and it was all transition. He treated me to a hodge- 
podge of all his several gaits at once. Saint Vitus was 
the only patron saint I could think of. My head jerked 
one way, my body another, while each of my legs became 
a pendulum vibrating furiously, one always forward while 

20 the other was back, so that I had all the appearance and 
all the labor of going afoot, and at the same time was 
bumped within an inch of my life. Waterton's° aUigator 
was nothing to it; it was like riding a hard-trotting ar- 
madillo bare-backed. There is a species of equitation 

25 peculiar to our native land, in which a rail from the nearest 
fence, with no preliminary incantation of Horse and hattock ! 
is converted into a steed, and this alone may stand the com- 
parison. Storg in the mean while was triumphantly taking 
the lead, his trousers working up very pleasantly above his 

30 knees, an insurrectionary movement which I also was unable 
to suppress in my own. I could bear it no longer. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 137 

" Le-e-o-o-p-o-o-o-l-l-l-d-d-0-0-0 ! " jolted I. 

"Command, Lordship!" and we both came to a stop. 

"It is necessary that we change horses immediately, or 
I shaU be jelly." 

"Certainly, Lordship"; and I soon had the pathetics 
satisfaction of seeing him subjected to all the excruciating 
experiments that had been tried upon myself. Fiat ex- 
perimentum in corpore vili° thought his extempore lord- 
ship, Christopher Sly,° to himself. 

Meanwhile all the other accessories of our ride were lo 
delicious. It was a clear, cool day, and we soon left the 
high road for a bridlepath along the side of the mountain, . 
among gigantic ohve-trees, said to be five hundred years 
old, and which had certainly employed all their time in 
getting into the weirdest and wonderfullest shapes. 15 
Clearly in this green commonwealth there was no heavy 
roller of public opinion to flatten all character to a lawn- 
Hke uniformity. Everything was individual and eccentric. 
And there was something fearfully human, too, in the 
wildest contortions. It was some such wood that gave 20 
Dante the hint of his human forest in the seventh circle, 
and I should have dreaded to break a twig, lest I should 
hear that voice complaining, 

"Perche mi scerpi? 
Non hai tu spirto di pietate alcuno?"° 25 

Our path lay along a kind of terrace, and at every open- 
ing we had glimpses of the billowy Campagna, with the 
great dome bulging from its rim, while on our right, chang- 
ing ever as we rode, the Alban mountain showed us some 
new grace of that sweeping outline peculiar to volcanoes. 30 



138 EARLIER ESSAYS 

At intervals the substructions of Roman villas would crop 
out from the soil like masses of rock, and deserving to rank 
as a geological formation by themselves. Indeed, in 
gazing into these dark caverns, one does not think of man 
5 more than at Staffa.° Nature has adopted these frag- 
ments of a race who were dear to her. She has not suffered 
these bones of the great Queen to lack due sepulchral 
rites, but has flung over them the ceremonial handfuls of 
earth, and every year carefully renews the garlands of 

lo memorial flowers. Nay, if what they say in Rome be 
true, she has even made a new continent of the Colosseum, 
and given it a flora of its own. 

At length, descending a little, we passed through farm- 
yards, and cultivated fields, where, from Leopoldo's con- 

15 versations with the laborers, we discovered that he him- 
self did not know the way for which he had undertaken 
to be guide. However, we presently came to our ruin, 
and very noble it was. The aqueduct had here been 
carried across a deep gorge, and over the little brook which 

20 wimpled along below towered an arch, as a bit of Shake- 
speare bestrides the exiguous rill of a discourse which it 
was intended to ornament. The only human habitation 
in sight was a Httle casetta on the top of a neighboring 
hill. What else of man's work could be seen was a ruined 

25 castle of the Middle Ages, and, far away upon the horizon, 
the eternal dome. A valley in the moon could scarce 
have been lonelier, could scarce have suggested more 
strongly the Reeling of preteriteness and extinction. The 
stream below did not seem so much to sing as to murmur 

30 sadly, Conclusum est penisti!° and the wind, sighing 
through the arch, answered, Periisti ! Nor was the si- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 139 

lence of Monte Cavi without meaning. That cup, once 
full of fiery wine, in which it pledged Vesuvius and ^Etna 
later born, was brimmed with innocent water now. Adam 
came upon the earth too late to see the glare of its last 
orgy, lighting the eyes of saurians in the reedy Campagna 5 
below. I almost fancied I could hear a voice like that 
which cried to the Egyptian pilot. Great Pan° is dead ! I 
was looking into the dreary socket where once glowed the 
eye that saw the whole earth vassal. Surely, this was the 
world's autumn, and I could hear the feet of Time rus- 10 
tling through the wreck of races and dynasties, cheap and 
inconsiderable as fallen leaves. 

But a guide is not engaged to lead one into the world of 
imagination. He is as deadty to sentiment as a sniff of 
hartshorn. His position is a false one, like that of the 15 
critic, who is supposed to know everything, and expends 
himself in showing that he does not. If you should ever 
have the luck to attend a concert of the spheres, under 
the protection of an Italian cicerone, he will expect you 
to listen to him rather than to it. He will say : '^Ecco, 20 
Signoria° that one in the red mantle is Signor Mars, eh ! 
what a noblest basso., is Signor Mars ! but nothing (Lord- 
ship understands ?) to what Signor Saturn used to be, (he 
with the golden belt, Signoria,) only his voice is in ruins 
now, — scarce one note left upon another ; but Lordship 25 
can see what it was by the remains, Roman remains, 
Signoria, Roman remains, the work of giants. (Lordship 
understands?) They make no such voices now. Cer- 
tainly, Signor Jupiter (with the yellow tunic, there) is a 
brave artist and a most sincere tenor ; but since the time 30 
of the Republic" (if he think you an oscurante,° or since 



140 EARLIER ESSAYS 

the French, if he suspect you of being the least red) "we 
have no more good singing." And so on. 

It is a well-known fact to all persons who are in the 
habit of cUmbing Jacob's-ladders,° that, if any one speak 
5 to you during the operation, the fabric collapses, and you 
come somewhat uncomfortably to the ground. One can 
be hit with a remark, when he is beyond the reach of more 
material missiles. Leopoldo saw by my abstracted man- 
ner that I was getting slwslj from him, and I was the only 
lo victim he had left, for Storg was making a sketch below. 
So he hastened to fetch me down again. 

"Nero built this arch, Lordship." (He didn't, but 
Nero was Leopoldo's historical scapegoat.) "Lordship 
sees the dome? he will deign to look the least little to 
15 the left hand. Lordship has much intelligence. Well, 
Nero always did thus. His works always, always, had 
Rome in view." 

He had already shown me two ruins, which he ascribed 
equally to Nero, and which could only have seen Rome 
20 by looking through a mountain. However, such trifles 
are notliing to an accompHshed guide. 

I remembered his quoting Horace in the morning. 
"Do you understand Latin, Leopoldo?" 
" I did a little once, Lordship. I went to the Jesuits' school 
25 at Tivoli. But what use of Latin to a povenno° like me ? " 
"Were you intended for the church? Why did you 
leave the school ? " 

"Eh, Lordship!" and one of those shrugs which might 
mean that he left it of his own free will, or that he was ex- 
sopelled at point of toe. He added some contemptuous 
phrase about the priests. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 141 

"But, Leopoldo, you are a good Catholic?" 

"Eh, Lordship, who Imows? A man is no blinder for 
being poor, — nay, hunger sharpens the eyesight some- 
times. The cardinals (their Eminences!) tell us that it 
is good to be poor, and that, in proportion as we lack on s 
earth, it shall be made up to us in Paradise. Now, if the 
cardinals (their Eminences!) believe what they preach, 
why do they want to ride in such handsome carriages?" 

"But are there many who think as you do?" 

"Everybody, Lordship, but a few women and fools. lo 
What imports it what the fools think?" 

An immense deal, I thought, an immense deal; for of 
what material is public opinion manufactured? 

"Do you ever go to church?" 

"Once a year, Lordship, at Easter, to mass and con- 15 
fession." 

"Why once a year?" 

"Because, Lordship, one must have a certificate from 
the priest. One might be sent to prison else, and one had 
rather go to confession than to jail. Eh, Lordship, it is 20 
a porchena.''° 

It is proper to add, that in what Leopoldo said of the 
priests he was not speaking of his old masters, the Jesuits. 
One never hears anything in Italy against the purity of 
their • lives, or their learning and ability, though much 25 
against their unscrupulousness. Nor will any one who 
has ever enjoyed the gentle and dignified hospitality of 
the Benedictines be ready to believe any evil report of 
them. 

By this time Storg had finished his sketch, and we re- 30 
mounted our grazing steeds. They were brisker as soon 



142 EARLIER ESSAYS 

as their noses were turned homeward, and we did the 
eight miles back in an hour. The setting sun streamed 
through and among the Michael Angelesque olive-trunks, 
and, through the long colonnade of the bridle-path, fired 
5 the scarlet waistcoats and bodices of homeward villagers, 
or was sullenly absorbed in the long black cassock and 
flapped hat of a priest, who courteously saluted the stran- 
gers. Sometimes a mingled flock of sheep and goats (as 
if they had walked out of one of Claude's pictures) fol- 
io lowed the shepherd, who, satyr-like, in goat-sldn breeches, 
sang such songs as were acceptable before Tubal Cain° 
struck out the laws of musical time from his anvil. The 
peasant, in his ragged brown cloak, or with blue jacket 
hanging from the left shoulder, still strides Romanly, — 
IS incedit rex° — and his eyes have a placid grandeur, in- 
herited from those which watched the glittering snake of 
the Triumph, as it undulated along the Via Sacra. By 
his side moves with equal pace his woman-porter, the 
caryatid of a vast entablature of household-stuff, and 
20 learning in that harsh school a sinuous poise of body and 
a security of step beyond the highest snatch of the pos- 
ture-master. 

As we drew near TivoH the earth was fast swinging into 
shadow. The darkening Campagna, climbing the sides 
25 of the nearer Monticelli in a gray belt of olive-spray, rolled 
on towards the blue island of Soracte, behind which we 
lost the sun. Yes, we had lost the sun ; but in the wide 
chimney of the largest room at the Sibilla there danced 
madly, crackUng with ilex and laurel, a bright ambassador 
30 from Sunland, Monsieur Le Feu,° no pinchbeck substitute 
for his royal master. . As we drew our chairs up, after the 



EARLIER ESSAYS 143 

dinner due to Leopoldo's forethought, "Behold," said I, 
"the Resident of the great king near the court of our (this- 
day-created) Hogan Moganships." 

We sat looking into the fire, as it wavered from shining 
shape to shape of unearthliest fantasy, and both of us, 5 
no doubt, making out old faces among the embers, for we 
both said together, "Let us talk of old times." 

"To the small hours," said the Edelmann; "and in- 
stead of blundering off to Torneo to intrude chatteringly 
upon the midnight privacy of Apollo, let us promote the 10 
fire, there, to the rank of sun by brevet, and have a kind 
of undress rehearsal of those night wanderings of his here 
upon the ample stage of the hearth." 

So we went through the whole catalogue of Do you re- 
members f and laughed at all the old stories, so dreary to 15 
an outsider. Then we grew pensive, and talked of the 
empty sockets in that golden band of our young friendship, 
— ■ of S., with Grecian front, but unsevere, and Saxon M., 
to whom laughter was as natural as for a brook to ripple. 

But Leopoldo had not done with us. We were to get 20 
back to Rome in the morning, and to that end must make 
a treaty with the company which ran the Tivoli diligence, 
the next day not being the regular period of departure 
for that prodigious structure. We had given Leopoldo 
twice his fee, and, setting a mean value upon our capaci- 25 
ties in proportion, he expected to bag a neat percentage 
on our bargain. Alas! he had made a false estimate of 
the Anglo-Norman mind, which, capable of generosity as 
a compliment to itself, will stickle for the dust in the bal- 
ance in a matter of business, and would blush at being 30 
done by Mercury himself. 



144 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Accordingly, at about nine o'clock there came a knock 
at the door, and, answering our Favonsca!° in stalked 
Leopoldo, gravely followed by the two commissioners of 
the company. 
5 ''Behold me returned. Lordship, and these men are the 
Vettunni.''° 

Why is it that men who have to do with horses are the 
same all over Christendom ? Is it that they acquire equine 
characteristics, or that tliis particular mystery is mag- 

lo netic to certain sorts of men ? Certainly they are marked 
unmistakably, and these two worthies would have looked 
perfectly natural in Yorkshire or Vermont. They were 
just alike, — fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum° — 
and you could not spUt an epithet between them. Simul- 

15 taneously they threw back their large overcoats, and 
displayed spheroidal figures, over which the strongly 
pronounced stripes of their plaided waistcoats ran like 
parallels of latitude and longitude over a globe. Simul- 
taneously they took off their hats and said, "Your ser- 

2ovant, gentlemen." In Italy, it is always necessary to 
make a comhinazione° beforehand about even the most 
customary matters, for there' is no fixed highest price for 
anything. For a minute or two we stood reckoning -each 
other's forces. Then I opened the first trench with the 

25 usual, ''How much do you wish for carrying us to Rome 
at half past seven to-morrow morning?" 

The enemy glanced, one at the other, and the result of 
this ocular witenagemof was that one said, "Four scudi,° 
gentlemen." 

30 The Edelmann Storg took his cigar from his mouth in 
order to whistle, and made a rather indecorous allusion 



EARLIER ESSAYS 145 

to four gentlemen in the diplomatic service of his Majesty, 
the Prince of the Powers of the Air. 

"Whe-ewl quattro diavoli!" said he. 

'' Macchd ! "° exclaimed I, attempting a flank-movement, 
''I had rather go on foot!" and threw as much horrors 
into my face as if a proposition had been made to me to 
commit robbery, murder, and arson all together. 

"For less than three scudi and a half the diHgence parts 
not from Tivoli at an extraordinary hour," said the stout 
man, with an imperturbable gravity, intended to mask his lo 
retreat, and to make it seem that he was making the same 
proposal as at first. 

Storg saw that they wavered, and opened upon them 
with his fljdng artillery of sarcasm. 

"Do you take us for Inglesi? We are very well here, 15 
and will stay at the Sibilla," he sniffed scornfully. 

"How much will Lordship give?" (This was showing 
the white feather.) 

"Fifteen pauls," (a scudo and a half,) ''buonamano° 
included." 20 

"It is impossible, gentlemen; for less than two scudi 
and a half the diligence parts not from Tivoli at an ex- 
traordinary hour." 

"Fifteen pauls." 

"Will Lordship give two scudi?" (with a sUght flavor 25 
of mendicancy.) 

"Fifteen pauls," (growing firm as we saw them waver.) 

"Then, gentlemen, it is all over; it is impossible, gen- 
tlemen." 

"Very good; a pleasant evening to you!" and they 30 
bowed themselves out. 



146 EARLIER ESSAYS 

As soon as the door closed behind them, Leopoldo, who 
had looked on in more and more anxious silence as the 
chance of plunder was whittled slimmer and sUmmer by 
the sharp edges of the parley, saw instantly that it was 

5 for his interest to turn state's evidence against his ac- 
compUces. 

"They will be back in a moment," he said knowingly, 
as if he had been of our side all along. 

"Of course; we are aware of that." — It is always 

lo prudent to be aware of everything in traveUing. 

And, sure enough, in five minutes re-enter the stout 
men, as gravely as if everything had been thoroughly set- 
tled, and ask respectfully at what hour we would have 
the diUgence. 

15 This will serve as a specimen of Italian bargain-making. 
They do not feel happy if they get their first price. So easy 
a victory makes them sorry they had not asked twice as 
much, and, besides, they love the excitement of the con- 
test. I have seen as much debate over a Httle earthen 

20 pot (value two cents) on the Ponte Vecchio, in Florence, 
as would have served for an operation of millions in the 
funds, the demand and the offer alternating so rapidly 
that the litigants might be supposed to be playing the 
ancient game of morra.° It is a part of the universal 

25 fondness for gaming, and lotteries. An EngUsh gentle- 
man once asked his Italian courier how large a percentage 
he made on all of his employer's money which passed 
through his hands. "About five per cent; sometimes 
more, sometimes less," was the answer. "Well, I will 

30 add that to your salary, in order that I may be rid of this 
uncomfortable feeling of being cheated." The courier 



EARLIER ESSAYS 147 

mused a moment, and said, ''But no, sir, I should not be 
happy ; then it would not be sometimes more, sometimes 
less, and I should miss the excitement of the game." 

22c;. — This morning the diligence was at the door 
punctually, and, taking our seats in the coupe, we bade 5 
farewell to La Sibilla. But first we ran back for a part- 
ing glimpse at the water-fall. These last, looks, like 
lovers' last kisses, are nouns of multitude, and presently 
the povero stalliere, signori° waited upon us, cap in hand, 
telling us that the vetturino was impatient, and begging 10 
for drink-money in the same breath. Leopoldo hovered 
longingly afar, for these vultures respect times and seasons, 
and while one is fleshing his beak upon the foreign prey, 
the others forbear. The passengers in the diligence were 
not very lively. The Romans are a grave people, and 15 
more so than ever since '49. Of course, there was one 
priest among them. There always is; for the mantis 
religiosa° is as inevitable to these public conveyances as 
the curculio is to the plum, and one could almost fancy 
that they were bred in the same way, — that the egg was 20- 
inserted when the vehicle was green, became developed as 
it ripened, and never left it till it dropped withered from 
the pole. There was nothing noticeable on the road to 
Rome, except the strings of pack-horses and mules which 
we met returning with empty lime-sacks to Tivoli, whence 25 
comes the supply of Rome. A railroad was proposed, but 
the government would not allow it, because it would inter- 
fere with this carrying-trade, and wisely granted instead 
a charter for a road to Frascati, where there was no busi- 
ness whatever to be interfered with. About a mile of 30 
this is built in a style worthy of ancient Rome ; and it is 



148 EARLIER ESSAYS 

possible that eventually another mile may be accomplished, 
for some half-dozen laborers are at work upon it with 
wheelbarrows, in the leisurely Roman fashion. If it is 
ever finished, it will have nothing to carry but the con- 

5 viction of its own uselessness. A railroad has been pro- 
posed to Civita Vecchia ; but that is out of the question, 
because it would be profitable. On the whole, one does 
not regret the failure of these schemes. One would not 
approach the solitary emotion of a lifetime, such as is the 

lo first sight of Rome, at the rate of forty miles an hour. It 
is better, after painfully crawling up one of those long 
paved hills, to have the postilion turn in his saddle, and, 
pointing with his whip, (without looking, for he knows 
instinctively where it is,) say, Ecco San Pietro !° Then 

15 you look tremblingly, and see it hovering visionary on 
the horizon's verge, and in a moment you are rattling and 
rumbUng and wallowing down into the valley, and it is 
gone. So you play hide-and-seek with it all the rest of 
the way, and have time to converse with your sensations. 

20 You fancy you have got used to it at last ; but from the 
next hill- top, lo, there it looms again, a new wonder, and 
you do not feel sure that it will keep its tryst till you find 
yourself under its shadow. The Dome is to Rome what 
Vesuvius is to Naples ; only a greater wonder, for Michael 

25 Angelo himg it there. The traveller cHmbs it as he would 
a mountain, and finds the dwelHngs of men high up on 
its sacred cliffs. It has its annual eruption, too, at Easter, 
when the fire -trickles and palpitates down its mighty 
shoulders, seen from far-off TivoH. — No, the locomotive 

30 is less impertinent at Portici, haihng the imprisoned Titan 
there with a kindred shriek. Let it not vex the solemn 



EARLIER ESSAYS 149 

Roman ghosts, or the nobly desolate Campagna, with 
whose sohtudes the shattered vertebrae of the aqueducts 
are in truer sympathy. 

24:th. — To-day our journey to Subiaco properly begins. 
The jocund morning had called the beggars to their street- s 
corners, and the women to the windows; the players of 
morra (a game probably as old as the invention of fingers), 
of chuck-farthing, and of bowls, had cheerfully begun the 
labors of the day ; the plaintive cries of the chair-seaters, 
frog venders, and certain other peripatetic merchants, the lo 
meaning of whose vocal advertisements I could never pene- 
trate, quaver at regular intervals, now near and now far 
away; a solitary Jew with a sack over his shoulder, and 
who never is seen to stop, slouches along, every now and 
then croaking a penitential Cenci !° as if he were somehow is 
the embodied expiation (by the post-Ovidian metamor- 
phosis) of that darkest Roman tragedy; women are bar- 
gaining for lettuce and endive; the slimy Triton in the 
Piazza Barberina spatters himself with vanishing dia- 
monds ; a peasant leads an ass on which sits the mother 20 
with the babe in her arms, — a living flight into Egypt ; 
in short, the beautiful spring day had awakened all of 
Rome that can awaken yet (for the ideal Rome waits for 
another morning), when we rattled along in our carrettella 
on the way to Palestrina. A carrettella is to the perfected 25 
vehicle, as the coracle to the steamship; it is the first 
crude conception of a wheeled carriage. Doubtless the 
inventor of it was a prodigious genius in his day, and rode 
proudly in it, envied by the more fortunate pedestrian, 
and cushioned by his own inflated imagination. If the 30 
chariot of Achilles were like it, then was Hector happier 



150 EARLIER ESSAYS 

at the tail than the son of Thetis on the box. It is an 
oblong basket upon two wheels, with a single seat rising 
in the middle. We had not jarred over a hundred yards of 
the Quattro Fontane, before we discovered that no elastic 

s propugnaculum had been interposed between the body 
and the axle, so that we sat, as it were, on paving-stones, 
mitigated only by so much as well-seasoned ilex is less 
flinty-hearted than tufo or hreccia° If there were any 
truth in the theory of developments, I am certain that we 

lo should have been furnished with a pair of rudimentary 
elhptical springs, at least, before half our day's journey 
was over. However, as one of those happy illustrations 
of ancient manners, which one meets with so often here, 
it was instructive; for I now clearly understand that it 

1 5' was not merely by reason of pomp that Hadrian used to 
be three days in getting to his villa, only twelve miles off. 
In spite of the author of "Vestiges,"° Nature, driven to 
extremities, can develop no more easy cushion than a 
bUster, and no doubt treated an ancient emperor and a 

20 modern republican with severe impartiality. 

It was difficult to talk without biting one's tongue; 
but as soon as we had got fairly beyond the gate, and out 
of sight of the last red-legged French soldier, and tightly- 
buttoned doganiere° our driver became loquacious. 

25 "I am a good Catholic, — better than most," said he, 
suddenly. 

''What do you mean by that?" 

"Eh ! they say Saint Peter wrought miracles, and there 
are enough who don't believe it; but / do. There's the 

30 Barberini Palace, — behold one miracle of Saint Peter ! 
There's the Farnese, — behold another ! There's the 



EARLIER ESSAYS 151 

Borghese, — behold a third ! But there's no end of them. 
No saint, nor all the saints put together, ever worked so 
many wonders as he ; and then, per Bacco ! he is the uncle 
of so many folks, — why, that's a miracle in itself, and of 
the greatest ! " 5 

Presently he added : "Do you know how we shall treat 
the priests when we make our next revolution ? We shall 
treat them as they treat us, and that is after the fashion 
of the buffalo. For the buffalo is not content vdth getting 
a man down, but after that he gores him and thrusts him, lo 
always, always, as if he wished to cram him to the centre 
of the earth. Ah, if I were only keeper of hell-gate ! Not 
a rascal of them all should ever get out into purgatory 
while I stood at the door !" 

We remonstrated a Uttle, but it only exasperated him 15 
the more. 

"Blood of Judas! they will eat nothing else than gold 
when a poor fellow's belly is as empty as San Lorenzo 
yonder. They'll have enough of it one of these days — 
but melted ! How do you think they mil like it for soup ? " 20 

Perhaps, if our vehicle had been blessed with springs, 
our vetturino would have been more placable. I confess 
a growing moroseness in myself, and a wandering specu- 
lation or two as to the possible fate of the builder of our 
chariot in the next world. But I am more and more per- 25 
suaded every day, that, as far as the popular mind is con- 
cerned, Romanism is a dead thing in Italy. It survives 
only because there is nothing else to replace it with, for 
men must wear their old habits (however threadbare and 
out at the elbows) till they get better. ,It is literally a 30 
superstition, — a something left to stand over till the great 



152 EARLIER ESSAYS 

commercial spirit of the nineteenth century balances his 
accounts again, and then it will be banished to the limbo 
of profit and loss. The Papacy lies dead in the Vatican, 
but the secret is kept for the present, and government is 

5 carried on in its name. After the fact gets abroad, per- 
haps its ghost will terrify men a little while longer, but 
only while they are in the dark, though the ghost of a 
creed is a hard thing to give a mortal wound to, and may 
be laid, after all, only in a Red Sea of blood. 

lo So we rattled along till we came to a large albergo° just 
below the village of Colonna. While our horse was tak- 
ing his nnfresco° we climbed up to it, and found it deso- 
late enough, — the houses never rebuilt since Consul 
Rienzi sacked it five hundred years ago. It was a kind 

15 of gray incrustation on the top of the hill, chiefly inhabited 
by pigs, chickens, and an old woman with a distaff, who 
looked as sacked and ruinous as everything around her. 
There she sat in the sun, a dreary, doting Clotho,° who 
had outlived her sisters, and span endless destinies which 

20 none was left to cut at the appointed time. Of course 
she paused from her work a moment, and held out a skinny 
hand, with the usual, "Noblest gentlemen, give me some- 
thing for charity." We gave her enough to pay Charon's 
ferriage across to her sisters, and departed hastily, for 

25 there was something uncanny about the place. In this 
climate even the finger-marks of Ruin herself are indelible, 
and the walls were still blackened with Rienzi's fires. 

As we waited for our carrettella, I saw four or five of the 
lowest-looking peasants come up and read the handbill of 

30 a tombola (a kind of lottery) which was stuck up beside 
the inn-door. One of them read it aloud for our benefit, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 153 

and with remarkable propriety of accent and emphasis. 
This benefit of clergy, however, is of no great consequence 
where there is nothing to read. In Rome, this morning, 
the walls were spattered with placards condemning the 
works of George Sand, Eugene Sue, Git)berti, and others, s 
But in Rome one may contrive to read any book he likes ; 
and I know Italians who are familiar with Swedenborg, 
and even Strauss. 

Our stay at the albergo was illustrated by one other 
event, — a nightingale singing in a full-blossomed elder- lo 
bush on the edge of a brook just across the road. So 
liquid were the notes, and so full of spring, that the twig 
he tilted on seemed a conductor through which the mingled 
magnetism of brook and blossom flowed into him and 
were precipitated in music. Nature understands thor- 15 
oughly the value of contrasts, and accordingly a donkey 
from a shed hard by, hitched and hesitated and agonized 
through his bray, so that we might be conscious at once 
of the positive and negative poles of song. It was pleasant 
to see with what undoubting enthusiasm he went through 20 
his solo, and vindicated Providence from the imputation 
of weakness in making such trifles as the nightingale 
yonder. "Give ear, heaven and earth!" he seemed 
to say, "nor dream that good, sound commonsense is 
extinct or out of fashion so long as / live." I suppose 25 
Nature made the donkey half abstractedly^, while she was 
feeling her way up to her ideal in the horse, and that his 
bray is in like manner an experimental sketch for the neigh 
of her finished animal. 

We drove on to Palestrina, passing for some distance 30 
over an old Roman road, as carriageable as when it was 



154 EARLIER ESSAYS 

built. Palestrina occupies the place of the once famous 
Temple of Fortune, whose ruins are perhaps a fitter mon- 
ument of the fickle goddess than ever the perfect fane was. 

Come hither, weary ghosts that wail 
5 O'er buried Nimroud's carven walls, 

And ye whose nightly footsteps frail 

From the dread hush of Memphian halls 
Lead forth the whispering funerals ! 

Come hither, shade of ancient pain 
lo That, muffled sitting, hear'st the foam 

To death-deaf Carthage shout in vglin. 
And thou that in the Sibyl's tome 
Tear-stain' st the Jiever after Rome ! 

Come, Marius, Wolsey, all ye great 
15 On whom proud Fortune stamped her heel, 

And see herself the sport of Fate, 
Herself discrowned and made to feel 
The treason of her slippery wheel ! 

One climbs through a great part of the town by stone 
20 steps, passing fragments of Pelasgic wall, (for history, like 
geology, may be studied here in successive rocky strata,) 
and at length reaches the inn, called the Cappellaro, the 
sign of which is a great tin cardinal's hat, swinging from 
a small building on the other side of the street, so that a 
25 better view of it may be had from the hostelry itself. 
The landlady, a stout woman of about sixty years, wel- 
comed us heartily, and burst forth into an eloquent eulogy 
on some fresh sea-fish which she had just received from 
Rome. She promised everything for dinner, leaving us 
30 to choose; but as a skilful juggler flitters the cards be- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 155 

fore you, and, while he seems to offer all, forces upon you 
the one he wishes, so we found that whenever we under- 
took to select from her voluble bill of fare, we had in some 
unaccountable manner always ordered sea-fish. There- 
fore, after a few vain efforts, we contented ourselves, and, s 
while our dinner was cooking, climbed up to the top of the 
town. Here stands the deserted Palazzo Barberini, in 
which is a fine Roman mosaic pavement. It was a dreary 
old place. On the ceilings of some of the apartments 
were fading out the sprawling apotheoses of heroes of lo 
the family, (themselves long ago faded utterly,) who prob- 
ably went through a somewhat different ceremony after 
their deaths from that represented here. One of the 
rooms on the ground-floor was still occupied, and from its 
huge grated windows there swelled and subsided at inter- is 
vals a confused turmoil of voices, some talking, some sing- 
ing, some swearing, and some lamenting, as if a page of 
Dante's Inferno had become suddenly alive under one's 
eye. This was the prison, and in front of each window a 
large stone block allowed tete-a-tete discourses between 20 
the prisoners and their friends outside. Behind the 
palace rises a steep, rocky hill, with a continuation of 
ruined castle, the innocent fastness now of rooks and 
swallows. We walked down to a kind of terrace, and 
watched the Alban Mount (which saw the sunset for us 25 
by proxy) till the bloom trembled nearer and nearer to 
its summit, then went wholly out, we could not say when, 
and day was dead. Simultaneously we thought of dining, 
and clattered hastily down to the Cappellaro. We had 
to wait yet half an hour for dinner, and from where I sat 3° 
I could see through the door of the dining-room a kind of 



156 EARLIER ESSAYS 

large hall into which a door from the kitchen also opened. 
Presently I saw the landlady come out with a little hang- 
ing lamp in her hand, and seat herself amply before a row 
of baskets ranged upside-down along the wall. She care- 
5 fully lifted the edge of one of these, and, after she had 
groped in it a moment, I heard that hoarse choking scream 
peculiar to fowls when seized by the leg in the dark, as 
if their throats were in their tibiae after sunset. She took 
out a fine young cock and set him upon his feet before 

loher, stupid with sleep, and blinking helplessly at the 
lamp, which he perhaps took for a sun in reduced circum- 
stances, doubtful whether to crow or cackle. She looked 
at him admiringly, felt of him, sighed, gazed sadly at his 
coral crest, and put him back again. This ceremony she 

15 repeated with five or six of the baskets, and then went 
back into the kitchen. I thought of Thessalian hags and 
Arabian enchantresses, and wondered if these were trans- 
formed travellers, — for travellers go through queer trans- 
formations sometimes. Should St org and I be crowing 

20 and scratching to-morrow morning, instead of going to 
Subiaco? Should we be Plato's men, with the feathers, 
instead of without them? I would probe this mystery. 
So, when the good woman came in to lay the table, I asked 
what she had been doing with the fowls. 

25 "I thought to kill one for the gentlemen's soup; but 
they were so beautiful my heart failed me. Still, if the 
gentlemen wish it — only I thought two pigeons would be 
more delicatej' 

Of course we declined to be accessory to such a murder, 

30 and she went off delighted, returning in a few minutes 
with our dinner. First we had soup, then a roasted kid, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 157 

then boiled pigeons, (of which the soup had been made,) 
and last the pesci di mare° which were not quite so great 
a novelty to us as to our good hostess. However, hos- 
pitahty, like so many other things, is reciprocal, and the 
guest must bring his half, or it is naught. The prosperity 5 
of a dinner Ues in the heart of him that eats it, and an 
appetite twelve miles long enabled us to do as great justice 
to the fish as if we were crowding all Lent into our meal. 
The landlady came and sat by us; a large and serious 
cat, winding her great tail around her, settled herself lo 
comfortably on the table, Ucking her paws now and then, 
with a poor relation's look at the fish ; a small dog sprang 
into an empty chair, and a large one, with very confiden- 
tial manners, would go from one to the other of us, laying 
his paw upon our arms as if he had an important secret is 
to communicate, and alternately pricldng and drooping 
his ears in hope or despondency. The albergatrice° forth- 
with began to tell us her story, — how she was a widow, 
how she had borne thirteen children, twelve still living, 
and how she received a pension of sixty scudi a year, under 20 
the old Roman law, for her meritoriousness in this respect. 
The portrait of the son she had lost hung over the chimney- 
place and, pointing to it, she burst forth into the following 
droll threnody. The remarks in parenthesis were screamed 
through the kitchen door, which stood ajar, or addressed 25 
personally to us. 

"0 my son, my son! the doctors killed him, just as 
truly as if they had poisoned him ! how beautiful lie 
was ! beautiful ! beautiful ! ! beautiful ! ! ! (Are not those 
fish done yet ?) Look, that is his Hkeness, — but he was 30 
handsomer. He was as big as that" (extending her arms). 



158 EARLIER ESSAYS 

— "big breast, big shoulders, big sides, big legs! (Eat 
'em, eat 'em, they won't hurt you, fresh sea-fish, fresh! 
fresh ! ! fresh ! ! !) I told them the doctors had murdered 
him, when they carried him with torches ! He had been 

5 hunting, and brought home some rabbits, I remember, 
for he was not one that ever came empty-handed, and got 
the fever, and you treated him for consumption, and 
killed him! (Shall I come out there, or will you bring 
some more fish?) " So she went on, talking to herself, to 

lous, to the little serva in the kitchen, and to the medical 
profession in general, repeating every epithet three times, 
with increasing emphasis, till her voice rose to a scream, 
and contriving to mix up her living children with her 
dead one, the fish, the doctors, the serva, and the rabbits, 

IS till it was hard to say whether it was the fish that had large 
legs, whether the doctors had killed them, or the serva had 
killed the doctors, and whether the bello ! hello I ! hello ! ! !° 
referred to her son or a particularly fine rabbit. 

25th. — Ha\dng engaged our guide and horses the night 

20 before, we set out betimes this morning for Olevano. 
From Palestrina to Cavi the road winds along a narrow 
valley, following the course of a stream with rustles 
rather than roars below. Large chestnut-trees lean every 
way on the steep sides of the hills above us,, and at 

25 every opening we could see great stretches of Campagna 
rolling away and away toward the bases of purple 
mountains streaked with snow. The sides of the road 
were drifted with heaps of wild hawthorn and honey- 
suckle in full bloom, and bubbling with innumerable 

30 nightingales that sang unseen. Overhead the sunny sky 
tinkled with larks, as if the frost in the air were 



EARLIER ESSAYS 159 

breaking up and whirling away on the swollen currents 
of spring. 

Before long we overtook a little old man hobbling to- 
ward Cavi, with a bag upon his back. This was the mail ! 
Happy country, which Hurry and Worry have not yets 
subjugated ! Then we clattered up and down the narrow 
paved streets of Cavi, through the market-place, full of 
men dressed all aUke in blue jackets, blue breeches, and 
white stockings, who do not stare at the strangers, and so 
out at the farther gate. Now oftener and oftener we meet lo 
groups of peasants in gayest dresses, ragged pilgrims with 
staff and scallop, singing (horribly) ; then processions 
with bagpipes and pipes in front, droning and squeaUng 
(horribly); then strings of two-wheeled carts, eight or 
nine in each, and in the first the priest, book in hand, set- 15 
ting the stave, and all singing (horribly). This must be 
inquired into. Gigantic guide, who, splendid with blue 
sash and silver knee-buckles, has contrived, by incessant 
drumming with his heels, to get his mule in front, is hailed. 

"Ho, Petruccio, what is the meaning of all this press of 20 
people?" 

''Festa° Lordship, at Genezzano." 

"What/esia.^" 

"Of the Madonna, Lordship," and touches his hat, for 
they are all dreadfully afraid of her for some reason or 25 
other. 

We are in luck, this being the great festa of the year 
among the mountains, — a thing which people go out of 
Rome to see. 

"Where is Genezzano?" 30 

"Just over yonder. Lordship," and pointed to the left. 



160 EARLIER ESSAYS 

where was what seemed Hke a monstrous crystallization 
of rock on the crown of a hill, with three or four taller crags 
of castle towering in the midst, and all gray, except the 
tiled roofs, whose wrinkled sides were gold-washed with a 
5 bright yellow lichen, as if ripples, turned by some spell 
to stone, had contrived to detain the sunshine with which 
they were touched at the moment of transformation. 

The road, wherever it came into sight, burned with 
brilHant costumes, like an illuminated page of Froissart.® 

lo Gigantic guide meanwhile shows an uncomfortable and 
fidgety reluctance to turn aside and enter fairyland, which 
is wholly unaccountable. Is the huge earthen creature 
an Afrite,° under sacred pledge to Solomon, and in danger 
of being sealed up again, if he venture near the festival of 

IS our Blessed Lady? If so, that also were a ceremony worth 
seeing, and we insist. He wriggles and swings his great 
feet with an evident impulse to begin kicking the sides of 
his mule again and fly. The way over the hills from 
Genezzano to Olevano he pronounces seomodissima° de- 

20 manding of every peasant who goes by if it be not entirely 
impassable. This leading question, put in all the tones of 
plausible entreaty he can command, meets the invariable 
reply, "E scomoda, davvero; ma per le bestie — eh!" (it is 
bad, of a truth, but for the beasts — eh !) and then one of 

25 those indescribable shrugs, unintelligible at first as the 
compass to a savage, but in which the expert can make 
twenty hair's-breadth distinctions between N. E. and 
N. N. E. 

Finding that destiny had written it on his forehead, 

30 the guide at last turned and went cantering and kicking 
toward Genezzano, we following. Just before you reach 



EARLIER ESSAYS 161 

the town, the road turns sharply to the right, and, crossing 
a little gorge, loses itself in the dark gateway. Outside 
the gate is an open space, which formicated with peasantry 
in every variety of costume that was not Parisian. Laugh- 
ing women were climbing upon their horses (which they s 
bestride like men) ; pilgrims were chanting, and beggars 
(the howl of an Italian beggar in the country is something 
terrible) howling in discordant rivalry. It was a scene 
lively enough to make Heraclitus° shed a double allow- 
ance of tears ; but our giant was still discomforted. As lo 
soon as we had entered the gate, he dodged into a little 
back-street, just as we were getting out of wliich the 
mystery of his unwillingness was cleared up. He had been 
endeavoring to avoid a creditor. But it so chanced (as 
Fate can hang a man with even a rope of sand) that the 15 
enemy was in position just at the end of this very lane, 
where it debouched into the Piazza of the town. 

The disputes of Italians are very droll things, and I 
will accordingly bag the one which is now imminent, as 
a specimen. They quarrel as unaccountably as dogs, who 20 
put their noses together, dislike each other's kind of smell, 
and instantly tumble one over the other, with noise enough 
to draw the eyes of a whole street. So these people burst 
out, without apparent preliminaries, into a noise and fury 
and war-dance which would imply the very utmost pitch 25 
and agony of exasperation. And the subsidence is as 
sudden. They explode each other on mere contact, as 
if by a law of nature, like two hostile gases. They do not 
grow warm, but leap at once from zero to some degree of 
white-heat, to indicate which no Anglo-Saxon thermom-30 
eter of wrath is highly enough graduated. If I were 



162 EARLIER ESSAYS 

asked to name one universal characteristic of an Italian 
town, I should say, two men clamoring and shaking them- 
selves to pieces at each other, and a woman leaning lazily 
out of a window, and perhaps looking at something else. 
5 Till one gets used to tliis kind of thing, one expects some 
horrible catastrophe; but during eight months in Italy 
I have only seen blows exchanged thrice. In the present 
case the explosion was of harmless gunpowder. 

" Why-haven't-you-paid-those-fif ty-five-baj occhi-at-the- 

lo pizzicarolo'sf^'° began the adversary, speaking with such 
inconceivable rapidity that he made only one word, nay, 
as it seemed, one monosyllable, of the whole sentence. 
Our giant, with a controversial genius which I should not 
have suspected in him, immediately, and with great 

15 adroitness, changed the ground of dispute, and, instead of 
remaining an insolvent debtor, raised himself at once to 
the ethical position of a moralist, resisting an unjust de- 
mand from principle. 

''It was only /or^?/-five," roared he. 

20 "But I say fifty-fiYe,'' screamed the other, and shook 
his close-cropped head as a boy does an apple on the end 
of a switch, as if he meant presently to jerk it off at his 
antagonist. 

"Birbone!"° yelled the guide, gesticulating so furiously 

25 with every square inch of his ponderous body that I 
thought he would throw his mule over, the poor beast 
standing all the while with drooping head and ears while 
the thunders of this man-quake burst over him. So feels 
the tortoise that sustains the globe when earth suffers 

30 fiery convulsions. 

"Birbante!''° retorted the creditor, and the opprobrious 



EARLIER ESSAYS 163 

epithet clattered from between his shaking jaws as a re- 
fractory copper is rattled out of a Jehoiada-box by a child. 

"Andate vi far friggere!''° howled giant. 

"Andate ditto, ditto l^'' echoed creditor, — and behold 
the thing is over ! The giant promises to attend to the s 
affair when he comes back, the creditor returns to his 
booth, and we ride on. 

Speaking of Italian quarrels, I am tempted to paren- 
thesize here another which I saw at Civita Vecchia. We 
had been five days on our way from Leghorn in a French lo 
steamer, a voyage performed usuallj^, I think, in about 
thirteen hours. It was heavy weather, blowing what a 
sailor would call half a gale of wind, and the caution of our 
captain, not to call it fear, led him to put in for shelter 
first at Porto Ferrajo in Elba, and then at Santo Stefano is 
on the Italian coast. Our little black water-beetle of a 
mail-packer was knocked about pretty well, and all the 
ItaUan passengers disappeared in the forward cabin before 
we were out of port. When we were fairly at anchor 
within the harbor of Civita Vecchia, they crawled out 20 
again, sluggish as winter flies, their vealy faces mezzo- 
tinted with soot. One of them presently appeared in the 
custom-house, his only luggage being a cage closely covered 
with a dirty red handkerchief, which represented his linen. 

" What have you in the cage ? " asked the 'c^ogramere. 25 

"Eh ! nothing other than a parrot." 

"There is a duty of one scudo and one bajoccho, then." 

''Santo diavolo !° but what hoggishness ! " 

Thereupon instant and simultaneous blow-up, or rather 
a series of explosions, Kke those in honor of a Neapolitan 30 
saint's-day, lasting about ten minutes, and followed by 



164 EARLIER ESSAYS 

as sudden quiet. In the course of it, the owner of the 
bird, playing irreverently on the first half of its name 
(pappagSil\o)° hinted that it would be a high duty for 
his HoUness himself {Papa). After a pause for breath, 
5 he said quietly, as if nothing had happened, "Very good, 
then, since I must pay, I will," and began fumbling for 
the money. 

" Meanwhile, do me the politeness to show me the bird," 
said the officer. 

lo ''With all pleasure," and, lifting a corner of the hand- 
kerchief, there lay the object of dispute on his back, stone- 
dead, with his claws curled up helplessly on each side his 
breast. I beUeve the owner would have been pleased 
had it even been his grandmother who had thus evaded 

15 duty, so exquisite is the pleasure of an ItaUan in escaping 
payment of anything. 

"I make a present of the poor bird," said he blandly. 

^ The pubhcan, however, seemed to feel that he had been 
somehow cheated, and I left them in high debate, as to 

20 whether the bird were dead when it entered the custom- 
house, and, if it had been, whether a dead parrot were 
dutiable. Do not blame me for being entertained and 
trying to entertain you with these trifles. I remember 
Virgil's stern 

25 *'Che per poeo e che teco non mi risso,"** 

but Dante's journey was of more import to himself and 
others than mine. 

I am struck by the freshness and force of the passions 

in Europeans, and cannot help feeling as if there were 

30 something healthy in it. When I think of the versatile 



EARLIER ESSAYS 165 

and accommodating habits of America, it seems like a 
land without thunderstorms. In proportion as man grows 
commercial, does he also become dispassionate and in- 
capable of electric emotions? The driving-wheels of all- 
powerful nature are in the back of the head, and, as man s 
is the highest type of organization, so a nation is better 
or worse as it advances toward the highest type of man, 
or recedes from it. But it is ill with a nation when the 
cerebrum sucks the cerebellum dry, for it cannot live by 
intellect alone. The broad foreheads always carry the lo 
day at last, but only when they are based on or buttressed 
with massive hind-heads. It would be easier to make a 
people great in whom the animal is vigorous, than to keep 
one so after it has begun to spindle into over-intellectu- 
ality. The hands that have grasped dominion and held 15 
it have been large and hard; those from which it has 
slipped, deUcate, and apt for the lyre and the pencil. 
Moreover, brain is always to be bought, but passion never 
comes to market. On the whole, I am rather inclined to 
like this European impatience and fire, even wliile I laugh 20 
at it, and sometimes find myself surmising whether a 
people who, like the Americans, put up quietly with all 
sorts of petty personal impositions and injustices, will not 
at length find it too great a bore to quarrel with great 
public wrongs. 25 

Meanwhile, I must remember that I am in Genezzano, 
and not in the lecturer's desk. We walked about for an 
hour or two, admiring the beauty and grand bearing of 
the women, and the picturesque vivacity and ever-re- 
newing unassuetude of the whole scene. Take six of the 30 
most party-colored dreams, break them to pieces, put 



166 EARLIER ESSAYS 

them into a fantasy-kaleidoscope, and when you look 
through it you will see something that for strangeness, 
vividness, and mutabiUty looked hke the httle Piazza of 
Genezzano seen from the church porch. As we wound 
s through the narrow streets again to the stables where we 
had left our horses, a branch of laurel or ilex would mark 
a wine-shop, and, looking till our eye cooled and toned 
itself down to dusky sympathy with the crypt, we could 
see the smoky interior sprinkled with white head-cloths 

lo and scarlet bodices, with here and there a yellow spot of 
lettuce or the red inward gleam of a wine-flask. The 
head-dress is precisely of that most ancient pattern seen 
on Egyptian statues, and so colossal are many of the 
wearers, that you might almost think you saw a party of 

IS young sphinxes carousing in the sunless core of a pyramid. 
We remounted our beasts, and, for about a mile, can- 
tered gayly along a fine road, and then turned into a by- 
path along the flank of a mountain. Here the guide's 
strada scomodissima° began, and we were forced to dis- 

20 mount, and drag our horses downward for a mile or two. 
We crossed a small plain in the valley, and then began to 
cUmb the opposite ascent. The path was perhaps four 
feet broad, and was paved with irregularly shaped blocks 
of stone, which, having been raised and lowered, tipped, 

25 twisted, undermined, and generally capsized by the rains 
and frosts of centuries, presented the most diaboUcally 
ingenious traps and pit-falls. All the while the scenery 
was beautifuh Mountains of every shape and hue 
changed their slow outlines ever as we moved, now open- 

30 ing, now closing around us, sometimes peering down 
solemnly at us over each other's shoulders, and then 



EARLIER ESSAYS 167 

sinking slowly out of sight, or, at some sharp turn of the 
path, seeming to stride into the valley and confront us 
with their craggy challenge, — a challenge which the 
little valleys accepted, if we did not, matching their rarest 
tints of gray and brown, and pink and purple, or that s 
royal dye to make which all these were profusely melted 
together for a moment's ornament, with as many shades 
of various green and yellow. Gray towns crowded and 
clung on the tops of peaks that seemed inaccessible. We 
owe a great deal of picturesqueness to the quarrels and lo 
thieveries of the barons of the Middle Ages. The travel- 
ler and artist should put up a prayer for their battered 
old souls. It was to be out of their way and that of the 
Saracens that people were driven to make their homes 
in spots so sublime and inconvenient that the eye alone is 
finds it pleasant to climb up to them. Nothing else but 
an American land-company ever managed to induce set- 
tlers upon territory of such uninhabitable quality. I 
have seen an insect that makes a mask for himself out of 
the lichens of the rock over which he crawls, contriving so 20 
to deceive the birds; and the towns in this wild region 
would seem to have been built on the same, principle. 
Made of the same stone with the cliffs on which they 
perch, it asks good eyesight to make them out at the dis- 
tance of a few miles, and every wandering mountain- 25 
mist annihilates them for the moment. 

At intervals, I could hear the giant, after digging at 
the sides of his mule with his spurless heels, growling to 
himself, and imprecating an apoplexy (accidente) upon 
the path and him who made it. This is the universal 30 
malediction here, and once it was put into rhyme for my 



168 EARLIER ESSAYS 

benefit. I was coming down the rusty steps of San 
Gregorio one day, and having paid no heed to a stout 
woman of thirty odd who begged somewhat obtrusively, 
she screamed after me, 

S "Ah, vi pigh un accidente, 

Voi che non date niente !" 

Ah, may a sudden apoplexy, 

You who give not, come and vex ye ! 

Our guide could not long appease his mind with this 

10 milder type of objurgation, but soon intensified it into 
accidentaccio, which means a selected apoplexy of uncom- 
mon size and ugliness. As the path grew worse and worse, 
so did the repetition of his phrase (for he was slow of in- 
vention) become more frequent, till at last he did nothing 

15 but kick and curse, mentally, I have no doubt, including 
us in his malediction. I think it would have gratified 
Longinus or Fuseli (both of whom commended swearing) 
to have heard him. Before long we turned the flank of 
the hill by a little shrine of the Madonna, and there was 

20 Olevano just above us. Like the other towns in this 
district, it was the diadem of an abrupt peak of rock. 
From the midst of it jutted the ruins of an old stronghold 
of the Colonna. Probably not a house has been built in 
it for centuries. To enter the town, we literally rode up 

25 a long flight of stone steps, and soon found ourselves in 
the Piazza. We stopped to buy some cigars, and the 
zigararo, as he^ rolled them up, asked if we did not want 
dinner. We told him we should get it at the inn. Benis- 
simo° he would be there before us. What he meant, we 

30 could not divine : but it turned out that he was the land- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 169 

lord, and that the inn only became such when strangers 
arrived, relapsing again immediately into a private dwell- 
ing. We found our host ready to receive us, and went 
up to a large room on the first floor. After due instruc- 
tions, we seated ourselves at the open window, — Storg 5 
to sketch, and I to take a mental calotype of the view. 
Among the many lovely ones of the day, this was the love- 
liest, — or was it only that the charm of repose was added ? 
On our right was the silent castle, and beyond it the silent 
mountains. To the left we looked down over the clus- 10 
tering houses upon a campagna-valley of peaceful culti- 
vation, vineyards, olive-orchards, grain-fields in their 
earliest green, and dark stripes of new-ploughed earth, 
over which the cloud-shadows melted tracklessly toward 
the hills which round softly upward to Monte Cavi. is 

When our dinner came, and with it a* flask of drowsy 
red Aleatico,° like ink with a suspicion of Hfe-blood in it, 
such as one might fancy Shakespeare to have dipped his 
quiU in, we had our table so placed that the satisfaction 
of our hunger might be dissensualized by the view from 20 
the windows. Many a glutton has eaten up farms and 
woodlands and pastures, and so did we, aesthetically, 
saucing our frittata° and flavoring our Aleatico with land- 
scape. It is a fine thing when we can accustom our animal 
appetites to good society, when body and soul (Hke master 25 
and servant in an Arab tent) sit down together at the 
same board. This thought is forced upon one very often 
in Italy, as one picnics in enchanted spots, where Imagi- 
nation and Fancy play the parts of the unseen waiters in 
the fairy-story, and serve us with course after course of 30 
their ethereal dishes. Sense is satisfied with less and 



170 EARLIER ESSAYS 

simpler food when sense and spirit are fed together, and the 
feast of the loaves and fishes is spread for us anew. If it 
be important for a state to educate its lower classes, so is 
it for us personally to instruct, elevate, and refine our 
5 senses, the lower classes of our private body-politic, and 
which, if left to their own brute instincts, will disorder or 
destroy the whole commonwealth with flaming insurrection. 
After dinner came our guide to be paid. He, too, had 
had his frittata and his fiasco° (or two), and came back 

lo absurdly comic, reminding one of the giant who was so 
taken in* by the little tailor. He was not in the least 
tipsy; but the wine had excited his poor wits, whose 
destiny it was (awkward servants as they were !) to trip 
up and tumble over each other in proportion as they be- 

15 came zealous. He was very anxious to do us in some way 
or other ; he only vaguely guessed how, but felt so gigan- 
tically good-natured that he could not keep his face sober 
long enough. It is quite clear why the Italians have no 
word but recitare° to express acting, for their stage is no 

20 more theatric than their street, and to exaggerate in the 
least would be ridiculous. We graver-tempered and 
-mannered Septentrions° must give the pegs a screw or 
two to bring our spirits up to nature's concert-pitch. 
Storg and I sat enjoying the exhibition of our giant, as if 

25 we had no more concern in it than as a comedy. It was 
nothing but a spectacle to us, at which we were present 
as critics, while he inveighed, expostulated, argued, and 
besought, in -a breath. Finding all his attempts mis- 
carry, or resulting in nothing more solid than applause, 

30 he said, "Forse non capisconof (Perhaps yoti don't 
understand?) "Capiscono pur' troppo," (They under- 



EARLIER ESSAYS 171 

stand only too well,) replied the landlord, upon which 
terrce filius° burst into a laugh, and began begging for 
more buonamano° Failing in this, he tightened his sash, 
offered to kiss our lordships' hands, an act of homage 
which we decHned, and departed, carefully avoiding Genez- 5 
zano on his return, I make no doubt. 

We paid our bill, and went down to the door, where 
we found our guides and donkeys, the host's handsome wife 
and handsomer daughter, with two of her daughters, and 
a crowd of women and children waiting to witness the 10 
exit of the foreigners. We made all the mothers and 
children happy by a discriminating largesse° of copper 
among the little ones. They are a charming people, the 
natives of these out-of-the-way Italian towns, if kindness, 
courtesy, and good looks make people charming. Our 15 
beards and felt hats, which make us pass for artists, were 
our passports to the warmest welcome and the best cheer 
everywhere. Reluctantly we piounted our donkeys, and 
trotted away, our guides (a man and a boy) running by 
the flank (true henchmen, haunchmen, flanquiers or flunk- 20 
eys) and inspiring the httle animals with pokes in the 
side, or with the even more effectual ahrrrrrrr I Is there 
any radical affinity between this rolling fire of r's and the 
word arra, which means hansel or earnest-money? The 
sound is the same, and has a marvellous spur-power over 25 
the donkey, who seems to understand that full payment 
of goad or cudgel is to follow. I have known it to move 
even a SiciUan mule, the least sensitive and most obstinate 
of creatures with ears, except a British church- warden. 

We wound along under a bleak hill, more desolate than 30 
anything I had ever seen. The old gray rocks seemed not 



172 EARLIER ESSAYS 

to thrust themselves out of the rusty soil, but rather to be 
stabbed into it, as if they had been hailed down upon it 
by some volcano. There was nearly as much look of 
design as there is in a druidical circle, and the whole looked 
5 like some graveyard in an extinguished world, the monu- 
ment of mortality itself, such as Bishop Wilkins° might 
have found in the moon, if he had ever got thither. The 
path grew ever wilder, and Rojate, the next town we came 
to, grim and grizzly, under a grim and grizzly sky of low- 

lotraiHng clouds, which had suddenly gathered, looked 
drearier eten than the desolations we had passed. It 
was easy to understand why rocks should like to live here 
well enough; but what could have brought men hither, 
and then kept them here, was beyond all reasonable sur- 

15 mise. Barren liills stood sullenly aloof all around, in- 
capable of any crop but lichens. 

We entered the gate, and found ourselves in the 
midst of a group of wild-looking men gathered about the 
door of a wine-shop. Some of them were armed with 

2o long guns, and we saw (for the first time in situ°) the tall 
bandit hat with ribbons wound round it, — such as one 
is famiUar with in operas, and on the heads of those in- 
habitants of the Scalinata° in Rome, who have a costume 
of their own, and placidly serve as models through the 

25 whole pictorial range of divine and human nature, from 
the Padre Eterno° to Judas. Twenty years ago, when my 
notion of an Italian was divided between a monk and a 
bravo, the first of whom did nothing but enter at secret 
doors and drink your health in poison, while the other 

30 lived behind corners, supporting himself by the produc- 
tive industry of digging your person all over with a stiletto, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 173 

I should have looked for instant assassination from these 
carousing ruffians. But the only blood shed on the occa- 
sion was that of the grape. A ride over the mountains 
for two hours had made us thirsty, and two or three bajoc- 
chi gave a tumbler of vino asciutto° to all four of us. " You s 
are welcome," said one of the men, "we are all artists after 
a fashion; we are all brothers." The manners here are 
more republican, and the title of lordship disappears alto- 
gether. Another came up and insisted that we should 
drink a second flask of wine as his guests. In vain we lo 
protested; no artist should pass through Rojate without 
accepting that token of good-will, and with the liberal 
help of our guides we contrived to gulp it down. He was 
for another ; but we protested that we were entirely full, 
and that it was impossible. I dare say the poor fellow 15 
would have spent a week's earnings on us, if we would 
have allowed it. We proposed to return the civihty, and 
to leave a paul for them to drink a good journey to us 
after we were gone; but they would not listen to it. Our 
entertainer followed us along to the Piazza, begging one 20 
of us to let him serve as donkey-driver to Subiaco. When 
this was denied, he said that there was a festa here also, 
and that we must stop long enough to see the procession 
of zitelle (young girls), which would soon begin. But 
evening was already gathering, the clouds grew momently 25 
darker, and fierce, damp gusts, striking us with the sud- 
denness of a blow, promised a wild night. We had still 
eight miles of mountain-path before us, and we struggled 
away. As we crossed the next summit beyond the town, 
a sound of chanting drifted by us on the wind, wavered 30 
hither and thither, now heard, now lost, then a doubtful 



174 EARLIER ESSAYS 

something between song and gust, and, lingering a few 
moments, we saw the white head-dresses, gUding two by 
two, across a gap between the houses. The scene and the 
music were both in neutral tints, a sketch, as it were, in 

5 sepia° a little blurred. 

Before long the clouds almost brushed us as they eddied 
silently by, and then it began to rain, first mistily, and then 
in thick, hard drops. Fortunately there was a moon, 
shining placidly in the desert heaven above all this tur- 

lo moil, or we could not have found our path, which in a few 
moments became a roaring torrent almost knee-deep. It 
was a cold fain, and far above us, where the mountain- 
peaks tore gaps in the clouds, we could see the white si- 
lence of new-fallen snow. Sometimes we had to dismount 

15 and wade, — a circumstance which did not make our 
saddles more comfortable when we returned to them and 
could hear them go crosh, crosh, as the water gurgled out 
of them at every jolt. There was no hope of shelter 
nearer than Subiaco, no sign of man, and no sound but 

20 the multitudinous roar of waters on every side. Rivulet 
whispered to rivulet, and water-fall shouted to water-fall, 
as they leaped from rock to rock, all hurrying to reinforce 
the main torrent below, which hummed onward toward 
the Anio with dilated heart. So gathered the hoarse 

25 Northern swarms to descend upon sunken Italy ; and so 
forever does physical and intellectual force seek its fatal 
equilibrium, rushing in and occupying wherever it is drawn 
by the attraction of a lower level. 

We forded large streams that had been dry beds an 

30 hour before ; and so sudden was the creation of the floods, 
that it gave one almost as fresh a feeling of water as if one 



EARLIER ESSAYS 175 ' 

had been present in Eden when the first rock gave birth to 
the first fountain. I had a severe cold, I was wet through 
from the hips downward, and yet I never enjoyed anything 
more in my Ufe, — so different is the shower-bath to which 
we doom ourselves from that whose string is pulled by s 
the prison-warden compulsion. After our little bearers 
had tottered us up and down the dusky steeps of a few 
more mountain-spurs, where a misstep would have sent'^ 
us spinning down the fathomless black nowhere below, 
we came out upon the high-road, and found it a fine one, lo 
as all the great Italian roads are. The rain broke off sud- 
denly, and on the left, seeming about haK a mile away, 
sparkled the lights of Subiaco, flashing intermittently like 
a knot of fire-flies in a meadow. The towii, owing to the 
necessary windings of the road, was still three miles off, 15 
and just as the guides had progued and ahrred the donkeys 
into a brisk joggle, I resolved to give up my saddle to the 
boy, and try Tom Coryate's° compasses. It was partly 
out of humanity to myself and partly to him, for he was 
tired and I was cold. The elder guide and I took the lead, 20 
and, as I looked back, I laughed to see the lolling ears of 
Storg's donkey thrust from under his long cloak, as if he 
were coming out from a black Arab tent. We soon left 
them behind, and paused at a bridge over the Anio till 
we heard the patter of little hoofs again. The bridge is 25 
a single arch, bent between the steep edges of a gorge 
through which the Anio huddled far below, showing a 
green gleam here and there in the struggling moonlight, 
as if a fish rolled up his burnished flank. After another 
mile and a half, we reached the gate, and awaited our com- 3° 
panions. It was dreary enough, — waiting always is, — 



176 EARLIER ESSAYS 

and as the snow-chilled wind whistled through the damp 
archway where we stood, my legs illustrated feeUngly to 
me how they cool water in the East, by wrapping the jars 
with wet woollen, and setting them in a draught. At last 
5 they came ; I remounted, and we went sliding through 
the steep, wet streets till we had fairly passed through the 
whole town. Before a long building of two stories, with- 
out a symptom of past or future light, we stopped. ^'Ecco 
laPaletta!''° said the guide, and began to pound furiously 

lo on the door with a large stone, which he some time before 
had provided for the purpose. After a long period of 
sullen irresponsiveness, we heard descending footsteps, 
light streamed through the chinks of the door, and the 
invariable "Chi e?''° which precedes the unbarring of all 

15 portals here, came from within. "Due forestieri,''° an- 
swered the guide, and the bars rattled in hasty welcome. 
^'Make us," we exclaimed, as we stiffly climbed down from 
our perches, "your biggest fire in your biggest chimney, 
and then we will talk of supper!" In five minutes two 

20 great laurel-fagots were spitting and crackling in an enor- 
mous fire-place ; and Storg and I were in the costume which 
Don Quixote wore on the Brown Mountain. Of course 
there was nothing for supper but a frittata ; but there are 
worse things in the world than a frittata col prosciutto° 

25 and we discussed it like a society just emerging from 
barbarism, the upper half of our persons presenting all 
the essentials of an advanced civilization, while our legs 
skulked underiihe table as free from sartorial impertinences 
as those of the noblest savage that ever ran wild in the 

30 woods. And so eccoci jinalmente arrivati !° 

27th. — Nothing can be more lovely than the scenery 



EARLIER ESSAYS 111 

about Subiaco. The town itself is built on a kind of cone 
rising from the midst of a valley abounding in oUves and 
vines, with a superb mountain horizon around it, and the 
green Anio cascading at its feet. As you walk to the high- 
perched convent of San Benedetto, you look across thes 
river on your right just after leaving the town, to a cliff 
over which the ivy pours in torrents, and in which dwell- 
ings have been hollowed out. In the black doorway of 
every one sits a woman in scarlet bodice and white head- 
gear, with a distaff, spinning, while overhead countless lo 
nightingales sing at once from the fringe of shrubbery. 
The glorious great white clouds look over the mountain- 
tops into our enchanted valley, and sometimes a lock of 
their vapory wool would be torn off, to lie for a while in 
some inaccessible ra\dne like a snow-drift ; but it seemed 15 
as if no shadow could fly over our privacy of sunshine to- 
day. The approach to the monastery is delicious. You 
pass out of the hot sun into the green shadows of ancient 
ilexes, leaning and twisting every way that is graceful, 
their branches velvety with brilliant moss, in which grow 20 
feathery ferns, fringing them with a halo of verdure. Then 
comes the convent, with its pleasant old monks, who show 
their sacred vessels (one by CelUni)° and their relics, 
among which is a finger-bone of one of the Innocents. 
Lower down is a convent of Santa Scolastica, where the 25 
first book was printed in Italy. 

But though one may have dayhght till after twenty- 
four o'clock in Italy, the days are no longer than ours, and 
I must go back to La Paletta to see about a vettura to TivoH. 
I leave Storg sketching, and walk slowly down, lingering 30 
over the ever-changeful views, lingering opposite the 



178 EARLIER ESSAYS 

nightingale-cliff, but get back to Subiaco and the vetturion 
at last. The growl of a thunder-storm soon brought 
Storg home, and we leave Subiaco triumphantly, at five 
o'clock, in a Hght carriage, drawn by three gray stalUons 
5 (harnessed abreast) on the full gallop. I cannot describe 
our drive, the mountain-towns, with their files of girls 
winding up from the fountain with balanced water-jars 
of ruddy copper, or chattering around it bright-hued as 
parrots, the ruined castles, the green gleams of the capri- 

lo cious river, the one great mountain that soaked up all the 
rose of sunset, and, after all else grew dim, still glowed as 
if wdth inward fires, and, later, the white spray smoke of 
Tivoli that drove down the valley under a clear cold moon, 
contrasting strangely with the red glare of the Hme-fur- 

isnace on the opposite hillside. It is well that we can be 
happy sometimes without peeping and botanizing in the 
materials that make us so. It is not often that we can 
escape the evil genius of analysis that haunts our modern 
daylight of self-consciousness {wir haben ja aufgekldrt !)° 

20 and enjoy a day of right Chaucer. 

P. S. Now that I am printing this, a dear friend sends 
me an old letter, and says, " Slip in somewhere, by way of 
contrast, what you wrote me of your visit to Passawamp- 
scot." It is odd, almost painful, to be confronted with 

25 your past self and your past self's doings, when you have 
forgotten both. But here is my bit of American scenery, 
such as it is. 

While we were waiting for the boat, we had time to 
investigate P. a little. We wandered about with no one 

30 to molest us or make us afraid. No cicerone was lying in 



EARLIER ESSAYS 179 

wait for us, no verger expected with funeral solemnity the 
more than compulsory shiUing. I remember the whole 
population of Cortona gathering round me, and beseech- 
ing me not to leave their city till I had seen the lampadone,° 
whose keeper had unhappily gone out to walk, taking 5 
the key with him. Thank Fortune, here were no antiq- 
uities, no galleries of Pre-Raphaelite art, every lank 
figure looking as if it had been stretched on a rack, before 
which the Anglo-Saxon writhes because he ought to Hke 
them and cannot for the soul of him. It is a pretty little lo 
village, cuddled down among the hills, the clay soil of 
which gives them, to a pilgrim from the parched gravelly 
inland, a look of almost fanatical green. The fields are 
broad, and wholly given up to the grazing of cattle and 
sheep, which dotted them thickly in the breezy sunshine, is 
The open doors of a barn, through which the wind flowed 
rusthng the loose locks of the mow, attracted us. Swal- 
lows swam in and out with level wings, or crossed each 
other, twittering in the dusky mouth of their hay-scented 
cavern. Two or three hens and a cock (none of your 20 
gawky Shanghais, long-legged as a French peasant on his 
stilts, but the true red cock of the ballads, full-chested, • 
coral-combed, fountain-tailed) were inquiring for hay- 
seed in the background. What frame in what gallery 
ever enclosed such a picture as is squared within the 25 
groundsel, side-posts, and Untel of a barn-door, whether 
for eye or fancy? The shining floor suggests the flail- 
beat of autumn, that pleasantest of monotonous sounds, 
and the later husking-bee, where the lads and lasses sit 
round laughingly busy under the swinging lantern. 30 

Here we found a fine, stalwart fellow shearing sheep. 



180 EARLIER ESSAYS 

This was something new to us, and we watched him for 
some time with many questions, which he answered with 
off-hand good-nature. Going away, I thanked him for 
having taught me something. He laughed, and said, 
5 ''Ef you'll take off them gloves o' yourn, I'll give ye a 
try at the practical part on't." He was in the right of it. 
I never saw anything handsomer than those brown hands 
of his, on which the sinews stood out, as he handled his 
shears, tight as a drawn bow-string. How much more 

lo admirable is this tawny vigor, the badge of fruitful toil, 
than the crop of early muscle that heads out under the 
forcing-glass of the gymnasium! Foreigners do not feel 
easy in America, because there are no peasants and under- 
lings here to be humble to them. The truth is, that none 

15 but those who feel themselves only artificially the superiors 
of our sturdy yeomen see in their self-respect any uncom- 
fortable assumption of equahty. It is the last thing the 
yeoman is likely to think of. They do not like the ''I say, 
ma good fellah" kind of style, and commonly contrive to 

20 snub it. They do not value condescension at the same 
rate that he does who vouchsafes it to them. If it be a 
good thing for an English duke that he has no social su- 
periors, I think it can hardly be bad for a Yankee farmer. 
If it be a bad thing for the duke that he meets none but 

25 inferiors, it cannot harm the farmer much that he never 
has the chance. At any rate, there was no thought 
of incivility in my friend Hobbinol's" jibe at my kids, 
only a kind of jolly superiority. But I did not like to be 
taken for a city gent, so I told him I was born and bred in 

30 the country as well as he. He laughed again, and said, 
"Wal, anyhow, I've the advantage of ye, for you never 



EARLIER ESSAYS 181 

see a sheep shore, an' I've ben to the Opery and shore 
sheep myself into the bargain." He told me that there 
were two hundred sheep in the town, and that his father 
could remember when there were four times as many. 
The sea laps and mumbles the soft roots of the hills, and s 
licks away an acre or two of good pasturage every season. 
The father, an old man of eighty, stood looking on, pleased 
with his son's wit, and brown as if the Passawampscot 
fogs were walnut-juice. 

We dined at a little tavern, with a gilded ball hung out lo 
for sign, — a waif, I fancy, from some shipwreck. The 
landlady was a brisk, amusing little body, who soon in- 
formed us that her husband was own cousin to a Senator 
of the United States. A very elaborate sampler in the 
parlor, in which an obelisk was wept over by a somewhat 15 
costly willow in silver thread, recorded the virtues of the 
Senator's maternal grandfather and grandmother. After 
dinner, as we sat smoking our pipes on the piazza, our good 
hostess brought her little daughter, and made her repeat 
verses utterly unintelligible, but conjecturally moral, and 20 
certainly depressing. Once set agoing, she ran down like 
an alarm-clock. We waited her subsidence as that of a 
shower or other inevitable natural phenomenon. More 
refreshing was the talk of a tall returned Calif ornian, who 
told us, among other things, that ''he shouldn't mind 25 
Panahmy's bein' sunk, oilers providin' there warn't none 
of our folks onto it when it went down !" 

Our landlady's exhibition of her daughter puts me in 
mind of something similar, yet oddly different, which 
happened to Storg and me at Palestrina. We happened 30 
to praise the beauty of our stout locandiera's° little 



182 EARLIER ESSAYS 

girl "Ah, she is nothing to her elder 'lister just 
married," said the mother. "If you could see her! She 
is bella, bella° bella !" We thought no more of it; but 
after dinner, the good creature, with no warning but a 

5 tap at the door and a humble con permesso° brought her 
in all her bravery, and showed her off to us as simply and 
naturally as if she had been a picture. The girl, who was 
both beautiful and modest, bore it wdth the dignified 
aplom.b° of a statue. She knew we admired her, and liked 

loit, but with the indifference of a rose. There is some- 
thing very charming, I think, in this wholly unsophisti- 
cated consciousness, with no alloy of vanity or coquetry. 



A FEW BITS OF ROMAN MOSAIC° 

Byron hit the white, which he often shot very wide of 
in his ItaUan Guide-Book, when he called Rome ''my 
country." But it is a feeling which comes to one slowly, 
and is absorbed into one's system during a long residence. 
Perhaps one does not feel it till he has gone away, as things 5 
always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is 
out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing 
leans and beckons. However it be. Fancy gets a rude 
shock at entering Rome, which it takes her a great while to 
get over. She has gradually made herself believe that 10 
she is approaching a city of the dead, and has seen nothing 
on the road from Civita Vecchia° to disturb that theory. 
Milestones, with ''Via Aurelia"° carved upon them, have 
confirmed it. It is eighteen hundred years ago with her 
and on the dial of time the shadow has not yet trembled 15 
over the line that marks the beginning of the first century. 
She arrives at the gate, and a dirty, blue man, with a cocked 
hat and a white sword-belt, asks for her passport. Then 
another man, as like the first as one spoon is like its fellow, 
and having, like him, the look of being run in a mould, 20 
tells her that she must go to the custom-house. It is as 
if a ghost, who had scarcely recovered from the jar of 
hearing Charon° say, "I'll trouble you for your obolus, if 
you please," should have his portmanteau seized by the 

183 



184 EARLIER ESSAYS 

Stygian tide-waiters to be searched. Is there anjrthing, 
then, contraband of death ? asks poor Fancy of herself. 

But it is the misfortune (or the safeguard) of the English 
mind that Fancy is always an outlaw, liable to be laid by 
5 the heels wherever Constable Common Sense can catch 
her. She submits quietly as the postilion cries, "Yeeip!'^ 
and cracks his whip, and the rattle over the pavement 
begins, struggles a moment when the pillars of the colon- 
nade stalk ghostly by in the moonlight, and finally gives 

lo up all for lost when she sees Bernini's° angels polking on 
their pedestals along the sides of the Ponte Sant' Angelo° 
with the emblems of the Passion in their arms. 

You are in Rome, of course; the shirr o° said so, the 
doganiere° bowed it, and the postihon swore it; but it is 

15 a Rome of modern houses, muddy streets, dingy caffes, 
cigar-smokers, and French soldiers, the manifest junior of 
Florence. And yet full of anachronisms, for in a Uttle 
while you pass the column of Antoninus, ° find the Dogana 
in an ancient temple whose furrowed pillars show through 

20 the recent plaster, and feel as if you saw the statue of 
Minerva° in a Paris bonnet. You are driven to a hotel 
where all the barbarian languages are spoken in one wild 
conglomerate by the Commissionnaire, have your dinner 
wholly in French, and wake the next morning dreaming of 

25 the Tenth Legion, to see a regiment of Chasseurs de Vin- 
cennes° trotting by. 

For a few days one undergoes a tremendous recoil. 
Other places have a distinct meaning. London is the 
visible throne of King Stock; Versailles is the apotheosis 

30 of one of Louis XIV.'s cast periwigs; Florence and Pisa 
are cities of the Middle Ages; but Rome seems to be a 



EARLIER ESSAYS 185 

parody upon itself. The ticket that admits you to see the 
starting of the horses at carnival, has S. P. Q. R.° at the 
top of it, and you give the custode° a paul for showing you 
the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus. The Senatus 
seems to be a score or so of elderly gentlemen in scarlet, $ 
and the Populusque Romanus a swarm of nasty friars. 

But there is something more than mere earth in the 
spot where great deeds have been done. The surveyor 
cannot give the true dimensions of Marathon or Lexing- 
ton,° for they are not reducible to square acres. Dead lo 
glory and greatness leave ghosts behind them, and de- 
parted empire has a metempsychosis, if nothing else has. 
Its spirit haunts the grave, and waits, and waits till at 
last it finds a body to its mind, sUps into it, and historians 
moralize on the fluctuation of human affairs. By and by, 15 
perhaps, enough observations will have been recorded to 
assure us that these recurrences are firmamental, and his- 
torionomers will have measured accurately the sidereal 
years of races. When that is once done, events will move 
with the quiet of an orrery, and nations will consent to 20 
their peridynamis and apodynamis with planetary com- 
posure. 

Be this as it may, you become gradually aware of the 
presence of this imperial ghost among the Roman ruins. 
You receive hints and startles of it through the senses 25 
first, as the horse always shies at the apparition before the 
rider can see it. Then, little by little, you become assured 
of it, and seem to hear the brush of its mantle through some 
hall of Caracalla's° baths, or one of those other soUtudes 
of Rome. And those solitudes are without a parallel ; 30 
for it is not the mere absence of man, but the sense of his 



186 EARLIER ESSAYS 

departure, that makes a profound loneliness. Musing 
upon them, you cannot but feel the shadow of that disem- 
bodied empire, and, remembering how the foundations of 
the Capitol were laid where a head was turned up, you are 

5 impelled to prophesy that the Idea of Rome will incarnate 

itself again as soon as an Italian brain is found large enough 

to hold it, and to give unity to those discordant members. 

But, though I intend to observe no regular pattern in 

my Roman mosaic, which will resemble more what one 

lo finds in his pockets after a walk, — a pagan cube or two 
from the palaces of the Caesars, a few Byzantine bits, given 
with many shrugs of secrecy by a lay-brother at San 
Paolo fuori le mura° and a few more (quite as ancient) 
from the manufactory at the Vatican, — it seems natural 

15 to begin what one has to say of Rome with something 
about St. Peter's; for the saint sits at the gate here as 
well as in Paradise. 

It is very common for people to say that they are disap- 
pointed in the first sight of St. Peter's; and one hears 

20 much the same about Niagara. I cannot help thinking 
'hat the fault is in themselves; and that if the church 
and the cataract were in the habit of giving away their 
thoughts with that rash generosity which characterizes 
tourists, they might perhaps say of their visitors, "Well, 

25 if you are those men of whom we have heard so much, we 
are a little disappointed, to tell the truth!" The refined 
tourist expects somewhat too much when he takes it for 
granted that ^t. Peter's will at once decorate him with 
the order of imagination, just as Victoria° knights an 

30 alderman when he presents an address. Or perhaps he 
has been getting up a little architecture on the road from 



EARLIER ESSAYS 187 

Florence, and is discomfited because he does not know 
whether he ought to be pleased or not, which is very much 
as if he should wait to be told whether it was fresh water 
or salt which makes the exhaustless grace of Niagara's 
emerald curve, before he benignly consented to approve. 5 
It would be wiser, perhaps, for him to consider whether, 
if Michael Angelo had had the building of him, his own 
personal style would not have been more impressive. 

It is not to be doubted that minds are of as many dif- 
ferent orders as cathedrals, and that the Gothic imagina- 10 
tion is vexed and discommoded in the vain endeavor to 
flatten its pinnacles, and fit itself into the round Roman 
arches. But if it be impossible for a man to like every- 
thing, it is quite possible for Mm to avoid being driven mad 
by what' does not please him ; nay, it is the imperative 15 
duty of a wise man to find out what that secret is which 
makes a thing pleasing to another. In approaching St. 
Peter's, one must take his Protestant shoes off his feet, 
and leave them behind him, in the Piazza Rusticucci.° 
Otherwise the great Basilica, with those outstretching 20 
colonnades of Bramante,° will seem to be a bloated spider 
lying in wait for him, the poor Reformed fly. As he lifts 
the heavy leathern flapper over the door, and is discharged 
into the interior by its impetuous recoil, let him disburden 
his mind altogether of stone and mortar, and think only 25 
that he is standing before the throne of a dynasty which, 
even in its decay, is the most powerful the world ever saw. 
Mason-work is all very well in itself, but it has nothing 
to do with the affair at present in hand. 

Suppose that a man in pouring down a glass of claret 30 
could drink the South of France, that he could so dis- 



188 EARLIER ESSAYS 

integrate the wine by the force of imagination as to taste 
in it all the clustered beauty and bloom of the grape, all 
the dance and song and sunburnt jollity of the vintage. 
Or suppose that in eating bread he could transubstantiate 

5 it with the tender blade of spring, the gleam-flitted corn- 
ocean of summer, the royal autumn, with its golden beard, 
and the merry funerals of harvest. This is what the great 
poets do for us, we cannot tell how, with their fatally- 
chosen words, crowding the happy veins of language again 

lo with all the life and meaning and music that had been 
dribbHng away from them since Adam. And this is what 
the Roman Church does for religion, feeding the soul 
not with the essential religious sentiment, not with a drop 
or two of the tincture of worship, but making us feel one 

IS by one all those original elements of which worship is com- 
posed; not bringing the end to us, but making us pass 
over and feel beneath our feet all the golden rounds of 
the ladder by which the climbing generations have reached 
that end; not handing us drily a dead and extinguished 

20 Q. E. D.,° but letting it rather declare itself by the glory 
with which it interfuses the incense-clouds of wonder 
and aspiration and beauty in which it is veiled. The 
secret of her power is typified in the mystery of the Real 
Presence. She is the only church that has been loyal to 

25 the heart and soul of man, that has clung to her faith in 
the imagination, and that would not give over her symbols 
and images and sacred vessels to the perilous keeping of 
the iconoclast Understanding. She has never lost sight 
of the truth, that the product human nature is com- 

30 posed of the sum of flesh and spirit, and has accordingly 
regarded both this world and the next as the constituents 



EARLIER ESSAYS 189 

of that other world which we possess by faith. She knows 
that poor Panza,° the body, has his kitchen longings and 
visions, as well as Quixote, ° the soul, his ethereal, and has 
wit enough to supply him with the visible, tangible raw 
material of imagination. She is the only poet among the 5 
churches, and, while Protestantism is unrolling a pocket 
surveyor's-plan, takes her votary to the pinnacle of her 
temple, and shows him meadow, upland, and tillage, 
cloudy heaps of forest clasped with the river's jewelled 
arm, hillsides white with the perpetual snow of flocks, 10 
and, beyond all, the interminable heave of the unknown 
ocean. Her empire may be traced upon the map by the 
boundaries of races; the understanding is her great foe; 
and it is the people whose vocabulary was incomplete till 
they had invented the archword Humbug that defies her. 15 
With that leaden bullet John Bull can bring down Senti- 
ment when she flies her highest. And the more the pity 
for John Bull. One of these days some one whose eyes 
are sharp enough will read in the Times a standing adver- 
tisement, — "Lost, strayed, or stolen from the farm-yard 20 
of the subscriber the valuable horse Pegasus.° Probably 
has on him part of a new plough-harness, as that is also 
missing. A suitable reward, etc. J. Bull." 

Protestantism reverses the poetical process I have 
spoken of above, and gives not even the bread of life, but 25 
instead of it the alcohol, or distilled intellectual result. 
This was very well so long as Protestantism continued to 
protest ; for enthusiasm subhmates the understanding into 
imagination. But now that she also has become an es- 
tablishment, she begins to perceive that she made a 30 
blunder in trusting herself to the intellect alone. She is 



190 EARLIER ESSAYS 

beginning to feel her way back again, as one notices in 
Puseyism,° and other such hints. One is put upon re- 
flection when he sees burly Englishmen, who dine on beef 
and porter every day, marching proudly through Saint 
5 Peter's on Palm Sunday, with those frightfully artificial 
palm-branches in their hands. Romanism wisely pro- 
vides for the childish in men. 

Therefore I say again, that one must lay aside his 
Protestantism in order to have a true feeling of Saint 

lo Peter's. Here in Rome is the laboratory of that mys- 
terious enchantress, who has known so well how to adapt 
herseK to all the wants, or, if you will, the weaknesses of 
human nature, making the retirement of the convent- 
cell a merit to the solitary, the scourge or the fast a piety 

15 to the ascetic, the enjoyment of pomp and music and in- 
cense a religious act in the sensual, and furnishing for the 
very soul itself a confidante in that ear of the dumb confes- 
sional, where it may securely disburden itself of its sins 
and sorrows. And the dome of St. Peter's is the magic 

20 circle within which she works her most potent incanta- 
tions. I confess that I could not enter it alone without a 
kind of awe. 

But, setting entirely aside the effect of this church upon 
the imagination, it is wonderful, if one consider it only 

25 materially. Michael Angelo created a new world in which 
everything was colossal, and it might seem that he built 
tliis as a fit temple for those gigantic figures with which 
he peopled it to worship in. Here his Moses should be 
high-priest, the service should be chanted by his prophets 

30 and sibyls, and those great pagans should be brought 
hither from San Lorenzo° in Florence, to receive baptism. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 191 

However unsatisfactory in other matters, statistics are 
of service here. I have seen a refined tourist who entered, 
Murray° in hand, sternly resolved to have St. Peter's look 
small, brought to terms at once by being told that the 
canopy over the high altar (looking very like a four-post s 
bedstead) was ninety-eight feet high. If he still obstinates 
himself, he is finished by being made to measure one of the 
marble putti° which look hke rather stoutish babies, and 
are found to be six feet, every sculptor's son of them. 
This ceremony is the more interesting, as it enables him lo 
to satisfy the guide of his proficiency in the Itahan tongue 
by calling them putty at every convenient opportunity. 
Otherwise both he and his assistant terrify each other into 
mutual unintelligibility with that lingua franca° of the 
English-speaking traveller, which is supposed to be^^r 15 
some remote affinity to the French language, of which 
both parties are as ignorant as an American Ambassador. 

Murray gives all these little statistical nudges to the 
Anglo-Saxon imagination; but he knows that its finest 
nerves are in the pocket, and accordingly ends by teUing 20 
you how much the church cost. I forget how much it is ; 
but it cannot be more, I fancy, than the Enghsh national 
debt multipUed into itself three hundred and sixty-five 
times. If the pilgrim, honestly anxious for a sensation, 
will work out this little sum, he will be sure to receive all 25 
that enlargement of the imaginative faculty which arith- 
metic can give him. Perhaps the most dilating fact, after 
all, is that this arcliitectural world has also a separate 
atmosphere, distinct from that of Rome by some ten 
degrees, and unvarying through the year. 30 

I think that, on the whole, Jonathan gets ready to be 



192 EARLIER ESSAYS 

pleased with St. Peter's sooner than Bull. Accustomed 
to our lath and plaster expedients for churches, the port- 
able sentry-boxes of Zion,° mere solidity and permanence 
are pleasurable in themselves ; and if he get grandeur also, 
5 he has Gospel measure. Besides, it is easy for Jonathan 
to travel. He is one drop of a fluid mass, who knows 
where his home is to-day, but can make no guess of where 
it may be to-morrow. Even in a form of government he 
only takes lodgings for the night, and is ready to pay his 

lo bill and be off in the morning. He should take his motto 
from Bishop Golias's "Mihi est propositum in tabernd 
mori,"° though not in the sufistic sense of that misunder- 
stood Churchman. But Bull can seldom be said to travel 
at all, since the first step of a true traveller is out of him- 

15 self. He plays cricket and hunts foxes on the Campagna,° 
makes entries in his betting-book while the Pope is giving 
his benediction, and points out Lord Calico to you aw- 
fully during the Sistine Miserere° If he let his beard 
grow, it always has a startled air, as if it suddenly re- 

2o membered its treason to Sheffield, and only makes him 
look more EngUsh than ever. A masquerade is impossible 
to him, and his fancy balls are the solemnest facts in the 
world. Accordingly, he enters St. Peter's with the dome 
of St. Paul's® drawn tight over his eyes, like a criminal's 

25 cap, and ready for instant execution rather than confess 
that the English Wren had not a stronger wing than the 
ItaUan Angelt I like this in Bull, and it renders him the 
pleasantest of travelling-companions; for he makes you 
take England along with you, and thus you have two 

30 countries at once. And one must not forget in an Italian 
inn that it is to Bull he owes the clean napkins and sheets, 



EARLIER ESSAYS 193 

and the privilege of his morning bath. Nor should Bull 
himself fail to remember that he ate with his fingers till 
the Italian gave him a fork, 

Browning° has given the best picture of St. Peter's on 
a festival-day, sketching it with a few verses in his large 5 
style. And doubtless it is the scene of the grandest spec- 
tacles which the world can see in these latter days. Those 
Easter pomps, where the antique world marches visibly 
before you in gilded mail and crimson doublet, refresh the 
eyes, and. are good as long as they continue to be merely 10 
spectacle. But if one think for a moment of the servant 
of the servants of the Lord in cloth of gold, borne on men's 
shoulders, or of the children receiving the blessing of their 
Holy Father, with a regiment of French soldiers to pro- 
tect the father from the children, it becomes a Httle sad. 15 
If one would feel the full meaning of those ceremonials, 
however, let him consider the coincidences between the 
Romish and the Buddhist forms of worship, and remem- 
bering that the Pope is the direct heir, through the Pon- 
tifex Maximus,° of rites that were ancient when the Etrus- 20 
cans were modern, he will look with a feeling deeper than 
curiosity upon forms which record the earliest conquests 
of the Invisible, the first triumphs of mind over music. 

To me the noon silence and solitude of St. Peter's were 
most impressive, when the sunlight, made visible by the 25 
mist of the ever-burning lamps in which it was entangled, 
hovered under the dome like the holy dove goldenly de- 
scending. Very grand also is the twilight, when all out- 
lines melt into mysterious vastness, and the arches expand 
and lose themselves in the deepening shadow. Then, 30 
standing in the desert transept, you hear the far-off vespers 



194 EARLIER ESSAYS 

swell and die like low breathings of the sea on some con- 
jectured shore. 

As the sky is supposed, to scatter its golden star-pdlenl 
once every year in meteoric showers, so the dome of St. 

5 Peter's has its annual efflorescence of fire. This illumina- 
tion is the great show of Papal Rome. Just after sunset, 
I stood upon the Trinita dei Monti° and saw the Uttle 
drops of pale light creeping downward from the cross and 
trickling over the dome. Then, as the sky darkened be- 

lo hind, it seemed as if the setting sun had lodged upon the 
horizon and there burned out, the fire still clinging to his 
massy ribs. And when the change from the silver to the 
golden illumination came, it was as if the breeze had 
fanned the embers into flame again. 

15 Bitten with the Anglo-Saxon gadfly that drives us all 
to disenchant artifice, and see the springs that fix it on, I 
walked down to get a nearer look. My next glimpse was 
from the bridge of Sant' Angelo; but there was no time 
nor space for pause. Foot-passengers crowding hither 

2c and thither, as they heard the shout of Avanti !° from the 
mile of coachmen behind, dragoon-horses curtsying back- 
ward just where there were most women and children to 
be flattened, and the dome drawing all eyes and thoughts 
the wrong way, made a hubbub to be got out of at any 

25 desperate hazard. Besides, one could not help feeling 
nervously hurried; for it seemed quite plain to every- 
body that this starry apparition must be as momentary 
as it was wonderful, and that we should find it vanished 
when we reached the piazza. But suddenly you stand in 

30 front of it, and see the soft travertine of the front suffused 
with a tremulous, glooming glow, a mildened glory, as if 



EARLIER ESSAYS 195 

the building breathed, and so transmuted its shadow into 
soft pulses of hght. 

After wondering long enough, I went back to the Pincio, 
and watched it for an hour longer. But I did not wish 
to see it go out. It seemed better to go home and leave s 
it still trembling, so that I could fancy a kind of perma- 
nence in it, and half beheve I should find it there again 
some lucky evening. Before leaving it altogether, I went 
away to cool my eyes with darkness, and came back sev- 
eral times ; and every time it was a new miracle, the more lo 
so that it was a human piece of faery-work. Beautiful as 
fire is in itseK, I suspect that part of the pleasure is meta- 
physical, and that the sense of playing with an element 
which can be so terrible adds to the zest of the spectacle. 
And then fire is not the least degraded by it, because it is 15 
not utilized. If beauty were in use, the factory would 
add a grace to the river, and we should turn from the fire- 
writing on the wall of heaven to look at a message printed 
by the magnetic telegraph. There may be a beauty in the 
use itself ; but utilization is always downward, and it is 20 
this feeling that makes Schiller's Pegasus° in yoke so 
universally pleasing. So long as the curse of work clings 
to man, he will see beauty only in play. The capital of 
the most frugal commonwealth in the world burns up five 
thousand dollars a year in gunpowder, and nobody mur- 25 
murs. Provident Judas° wished to utiUze the ointment, 
but the Teacher would rather that it should be wasted in 
poem. 

The best lesson in aesthetics I ever got (and, like most 
good lessons, it fell from the lips of no regular professor) 30 
was from an Irishman on the day the Nymph Cochituate° 



196 EARLIER ESSAYS 

was formally introduced to the people of Boston. I made 
one with other rustics in the streets, admiring the digni- 
taries in coaches with as much Christian charity as is con- 
sistent with an elbow in the pit of your stomach and a heel 
5 on that toe which is your only inheritance from two ex- 
cellent grandfathers. Among other allegorical phenom- 
ena, there came along what I should have called a hay- 
cart, if I had not known it was a triumphal car, filled with 
that fairest variety of mortal grass which with us is apt 
loto spindle so soon into a somewhat sapless womanhood. 
Thirty-odd young maidens in white gowns, with blue 
sashes and pink wreaths of French crape, represented the 
United States. (How shall we limit our number, by the 
way, if ever Utah be admitted?) The ship, the printing- 
is press, even the wondrous train of express-wagons, and 
other solid bits of civic fantasy, had left my Hibernian 
neighbor unmoved. But this brought him down. Turn- 
ing to me, as the most appreciative public for the moment, 
with face of as much delight as if his head had been broken, 
20 he cried, ''Now this is raly beautiful! Tothally regyard- 
less uv expinse ! ' ' Methought my shirt-sleeved lecturer 
on the Beautiful had hit at least one nail full on the head. 
Voltaire but epigrammatized the same thought when he 
said, Le superflu, chose tres-necessaire.^ 

25 As for the ceremonies of the Church, one need not waste 
time in seeing "many of them. There is a dreary sameness 
in them, and one can take an hour here and an hour there, 
as it pleases him, just as sure of finding the same pattern 
as he would in the first or last yard of a roll of printed 

30 cotton. For myself, I do not like to go and look with 



EARLIER ESSAYS 197 

mere curiosity at what is sacred and solemn to others. 
To how many these Roman shows are sacred, I cannot 
guess ; but certainly the Romans do not value them much. 
I walked out to the grotto of Egeria° on Easter Sunday, 
that I might not be tempted down to St. Peter's to sees 
the mockery of Pio Nono's° benediction. It is certainly 
Christian, for he blesses them that curse him, and does 
all the good which the waving of his fingers can do to 
people who would use him despitefuUy if they had the 
chance. I told an ItaHan servant she might have the day ; lo 
but she said she did not care for it. 

''But," urged I, ''will you not go to receive the blessing 
of the Holy Father?" 

"No,sir." 

" Do you not wish it ? " is 

"Not in the least: his blessing would do me no good. 
If I get the blessing of Heaven, it will serve my turn." 

There were three famihes of foreigners in our house, and 
I believe none of the Italian servants went to St. Peter's 
that day. Yet they commonly speak kindly of Pius.° 20 
I have heard the same phrase from several Italians of the 
working-class. "He is a good man," they said, "but 
ill-led." 

What one sees in the streets of Rome is worth more than 
what one sees in the churches. The churches themselves 25 
are generally ugly. St. Peter's has crushed all the Ufe 
out of architectural genius, and all the modern churches 
look as if they were swelling themselves in imitation of 
the great Basilica. There is a clumsy magnificence about 
them, and their heaviness oppresses you. Their marble 30 
incrustations look like a kind of architectural elephan- 



198 EARLIER ESSAYS 

tiasis, and the parts are puffy with a dropsical want of 
proportion. There is none of the spring and soar which 
one may see even in the Lombard churches, and a Roman 
column standing near one of them, slim and gentleman- 
5 like, satirizes silently their tawdry parvenuism. Attempts 
at mere bigness are ridiculous in a city where the Colos- 
seum still yawns in crater-like ruin, and where Michael 
Angelo made a noble church out of a single room in Diocle- 
tian's° baths. 

lo Shall I confess it ? Michael Angelo seems to me, in his 
angry reaction against sentimental beauty, to have mis- 
taken bulk and brawn for the antithesis of feebleness. He 
is the apostle of the exaggerated, the Victor Hugo of 
painting and sculpture. I have a feeling that rivalry was 

IS a more powerful motive with him than love of art, that he 
had the conscious intention to be original, which seldom 
leads to anything better than being extravagant. The 
show of muscle proves strength, not power; and force 
for mere force's sake in art makes one think of Milo° 

20 caught in his own log. Tliis is my second thought, and 
strikes me as perhaps somewhat niggardly toward one in 
whom you cannot help feeUng there was so vast a possi- 
bility. And then his Eve, his David, his Sibyls, his 
Prophets, his Sonnets ! Well, I take it all back, and come 

25 round to St. Peter's again just to hint that I doubt about 
domes. In Rome they are so much the fashion that I 
felt as if they were the goitre° of architecture. Generally 
they look heavy. Those on St. Mark's in Venice are the 
only light ones I ever saw, and they look almost airy, like 

30 tents puffed out with wind. I suppose one must be 
satisfied with the interior effect, which is certainly noble 



EARLIER ESSAYS 199 

in St. Peter's. But for impressiveness both within and 
without there is nothing Hke a Gothic cathedral for me, 
nothing that crowns a city so nobly or makes such an 
island of twiUght silence in the midst of its noonday 
clamors. S 

Now as to what one sees in the streets, the beggars are 
certainly the first things that draw the eye. Beggary is 
an institution here. The Church has sanctified it by the 
establishment of mendicant orders, and indeed it is the 
natural result of a social system where the non-producing lo 
class makes not only the laws, but the ideas. The beggars 
of Rome go far toward proving the diversity of origin in 
mankind, for on them surely the curse of Adam never fell. 
It is easier to fancy that Adam Vaurien° the first tenant 
of the Fool's Paradise, after sucking his thumbs for a is 
thousand years, took to wife Eve Faniente° and became 
the progenitor of this race, to whom also he left a calendar 
in which three hundred and sixty-five days in the year were 
made feasts, sacred from all secular labor. Accordingly, 
they not merely do nothing, but they do it assiduously and 20 
almost with religious fervor. I have seen ancient members 
of this sect as constant at their accustomed street-corner 
as the bit of broken column on which they sat ; and when 
a man does this in rainy weather, as rainy weather is in 
Rome, he has the spirit of a fanatic and martyr. 25 

It is not that the Italians are a lazy people. On the 
contrary, I am satisfied that they are industrious so far 
as they are allowed to be. But, as I said before, when 
a Roman does nothing, he does it in the high Roman 
fashion. A friend of mine was having one of his rooms 30 
arranged for a private theatre, and sent for a person who 



200 EARLIER ESSAYS 

was said to be an expert in the business to do it for him. 
After a day's trial, he was satisfied that his lieutenant was 
rather a hinderance than a help, and resolved to dismiss him. 
"What is your charge for your day's services?" 
5 ''Twoscudi,°sir." 

"Two scudi! Five pauls° would be too much. You 
have done nothing but stand with your hands in your 
pockets and get in the way of other people." 

"Lordship is perfectly right; but that is my way of 

lo working." 

It is impossible for a stranger to say who may not beg 
in Rome. It seems to be a sudden madness that may 
seize any one at the sight of a foreigner. You see a very 
respectable-looking person in the street, and it is odds but, 

15 as you pass him, his hat comes off, his whole figure sud- 
denly dilapidates itself, assuming a tremble of professional 
weakness, and you hear the everlasting qualche cosa per 
caritd!° You are in doubt whether to drop a bajoccho 
into the next cardinal's hat which offers you its sacred 

20 cavity in answer to your salute. You begin to believe 
that the hat was invented for the sole purpose of ingulfing 
coppers, and that its highest type is the great Triregno° 
itself, into which the pence of Peter rattle. 

But you soon learn to distinguish the established beg- 

25 gars, and to the three professions elsewhere considered 
liberal you add a fourth for this latitude, — mendicancy. 
Its professors look upon themselves as a kind of guild 
which ought to be protected by the government. I fell 
into talk with a woman who begged of me in the Colosseum. 

30 Among other things she complained that the government 
did not at aU consider the poor. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 201 

"Where is the government that does?" I said. 

^^Eh gid!° Excellency; but this government lets beg- 
gars from the country come into Rome, which is a great 
injury to the trade of us born Romans. There is Beppo, 
for example ; he is a man of property in his own town, 5 
and has a dinner of three courses every day. He has 
portioned two daughters with three thousand scudi each, 
and left Rome during the time of the Republic with the 
rest of the nobility." 

At first, one is shocked and pained at the exhibition of 10 
deformities in the street. But by and by he comes to 
look upon them with little more emotion than is excited 
by seeing the tools of any other trade. The melancholy 
of the beggars is purely a matter of business; and they 
look upon their maims as Fortunatus purses, which will 15 
always give them money. A withered arm they present 
to you as a highwayman would his pistol; a goitre is a 
life-annuity; a St. Vitus dance is as good as an engage- 
ment as prima ballerina^ at the Apollo; and to have no 
legs at all is to stand on the best footing with fortune. 20 
They are a merry race, on the whole, and quick-witted, 
like the rest of their countrymen. I believe the regular 
fee for a beggar is a quattrino, about a quarter of a cent ; 
but they expect more of foreigners. A friend of mine 
once gave one of these tiny coins to an old woman ; she 25 
delicately expressed her resentment by exclaiming, 
"Thanks, signoria. God will reward even you!" 

A begging friar came to me one day with a subscription 
for repairing his convent. "Ah, but I am a heretic," 
said I. "Undoubtedly," with a shrug, implying a re- 30 
spectful acknowledgment of a foreigner's right to choose 



202 EARLIER ESSAYS 

warm and dry lodgings in the other world as well as in 
this, "but your money is perfectly orthodox." 

Another favorite way of doing nothing is to excavate 
the Forum. I tliink the Fanientes like this all the better, 

5 because it seems a kind of satire upon work, as the witches 
parody the Christian offices of devotion at their Sabbath. 
A score or so of old men in voluminous cloaks shift the 
earth from one side of a large pit to the other, in a manner 
so leisurely that it is positive repose to look at them. The 

lo most bigoted anti-Fourierist° might acknowledge this to 
be attractive industry. 

One conscript father trails a small barrow up to another, 
who stands leaning on a long spade. Arriving, he fumbles 
for his snuff-box, and offers it deliberately to his friend. 

IS Each takes an ample pinch, and both seat themselves to 
await the result. If one should sneeze, he receives the 
Felicita !° of the other ; and, after allowing the titillation 
to subside, he replies, Grazia !° Then follows a little con- 
versation, and then they prepare to load. But it occurs 

20 to the barrow-driver that this is a good opportunity to fill 
and light his pipe ; and to do so conveniently he needs his 
barrow to sit upon. He draws a few whiffs, and a little 
'more conversation takes place. The barrow is now ready ; 
but first the melder of the spade will fill his pipe also. 

25 This done, more whiffs and more conversation. Then a 
spoonful of earth is thrown into the barrow, and it starts 
on its return. But midway it meets an empty barrow, 
and both stop to go through the snuff-box ceremonial 
once more, and to discuss whatever new thing has occurred 

30 in the excavation since their last encounter. And so it 
goes on all day. 



EARLIER ESSAYS 203 

As I see more of material antiquity, I begin to suspect 
that my interest in it is mostly factitious. The relations 
of races to the physical world (only to be studied fruit- 
fully on the spot) do not excite in me an interest at all 
proportionate to that I feel in their influence on the moral 5 
advance of mankind, which one may as easily trace in his 
own library as on the spot. The only useful remark I 
remember to have made here is, that, the situation of 
Rome being far less strong than that of any city of the 
Etruscan league, it must have been built where it is for lo 
purposes of commerce. It is the most defensible point 
near the mouth of the Tiber. It is only as rival trades- 
folk that Rome and Carthage had any comprehensible 
cause of quarrel. It is only as a commercial people that 
we can understand the early tendency of the Romans is 
towards democracy. As for antiquity, after reading his- 
tory, one is haunted by a discomforting suspicion that 
the names so painfully deciphered in hieroglyphic or 
arrow-head inscriptions are only so many more Smiths 
and Browns masldng it in unknown tongues. Moreover, 20 
if the Yankees are twitted with not knowing the difference 
between big and great, may not those of us who have 
learned it turn round on many a monument over here with 
the same reproach? I confess I am beginning to sym- 
pathize with a countryman of ours from Michigan, who 25 
asked our Minister to direct him to a specimen ruin and 
a specimen gallery, that he might see and be rid of them 
once for all. I saw three young Enghshmen going through 
the Vatican by catalogue and number, the other day, in a 
fashion which John Bull is apt to consider exclusively 30 
American. "Number 300!" says the one with catalogue 



204 EARLIER ESSAYS 

and pencil, "have you seen it?" "Yes," answer his two 
comrades, and, checking it off, he goes on with Number 
301. Having witnessed the unavailing agonies of many 
Anglo-Saxons from both sides of the Atlantic in their 

5 effort to have the correct sensation before many hideous 
examples of antique bad taste, my heart warmed toward 
my business-like British cousins, who were doing their 
aesthetics in this thrifty auctioneer fashion. Our cart- 
before-horse education, which makes us more familiar 

lo with the history and literature of Greeks and Romans than 
with those of our own ancestry, (though there is nothing 
in ancient art to match Shakespeare or a Gothic minster,) 
makes us the gulls of what we call classical antiquity. In 
sculpture, to be sure, they have us on the hip. Europe 

15 were worth visiting, if only to be rid of this one old man of 
the sea. 

I am not ashamed to confess a singular sympathy with 
what are known as the Middle Ages. I cannot help think- 
ing that few periods have left behind them such traces of 

2o inventiveness and power. Nothing is more tiresome than 
the sameness of modern cities ; and it has often struck me 
that this must also have been true of those ancient ones 
in which Greek architecture or its derivatives prevailed, 
— true at least as respects pubUc buildings. But mediaeval 

25 towns, especially in Italy, even when only fifty miles asun- 
der, have an indiidduahty of character as marked as that 
of trees. Nor is it merely this originality that attracts 
me, but likewise the sense that, however old, they are 
nearer to me in being modern and Christian. I find it 

30 harder to bridge over the gulf of Paganism than of cen- 
turies. Apart from any difference in the men, I had a far 



EARLIER ESSAYS 205 

deeper emotion when I stood on the Sasso di Dante ° than 
at Horace's Sabine farm or by the tomb of Virgil. The 
latter, indeed, interested me chiefly by its association with 
comparatively modern legend; and one of the buildings 
I am most glad to have seen in Rome is the Bear Inn, 5 
where Montaigne lodged on his arrival. 

I think it must have been for some such reason that I 
liked my Florentine better than my Roman walks, though 
I am vastly more contented with merely being in Rome. 
Florence is more noisy ; indeed, I think it the noisiest 10 
town I was ever in. What with the continual jangling 
of its bells, the rattle of Austrian drums, and the street- 
cries, Ancora mi raccapriccia° The Italians are a vocifer- 
ous people, and most so among them the Florentines. 
Walking through a back street one day, I saw an old 15 
woman higgling with a peripatetic dealer, who, at every 
interval afforded him by the remarks of his veteran antag- 
onist, would tip his head on one side, and shout, with a 
kind of wondering enthusiasm, as if he could hardly trust 
the evidence of his own senses to such loveliness, 0, che 20 
bellezza !° che belle-e-ezza ! The two had been contending 
as obstinately as the Greeks and Trojans over the body of 
Patroclus,° and I was curious to know what was the object 
of so much desire on the one side and admiration on the 
other. It was a half-dozen of weazeny baked pears, beg- 25 
garly remnant of the day's traffic. Another time I 
stopped before a stall, debating whether to buy some fine- 
looking peaches. Before I had made up my mind, the 
vender, a stout fellow, with a voice like a prize-bull of 
Bashan,° opened a mouth round and large as the muzzle 30 
of a blunderbuss, and let fly into my ear the following 



206 EARLIER ESSAYS 

pertinent observation: "Belle pesche !° belle pe-e-eschef' 
(crescendo.) I stared at him in stunned bewilderment; 
but, seeing that he had reloaded and was about to fire 
again, took to my heels, the exploded syllables rattUng 

5 after me like so many buckshot. A single turnip is argu- 
ment enough Avith them till midnight ; nay, I have heard 
a ruffian yelling over a covered basket, wliich, I am con- 
vinced, was empty, and only carried as an excuse for his 
stupendous vocaUsm. It never struck me before what 

lo a quiet people Americans are. 

Of the pleasant places within easy walk of Rome, I 
prefer the garden of the Villa Albani, as being most 
ItaHan. One does not go to Italy for examples of Price 
on the Picturesque. Compared with lands cape-garden- 

15 ing, it is Racine° to Shakespeare, I grant ; but it has its 
o\\m charm, nevertheless. I like the balustraded terraces, 
the sun-proof laurel walks, the vases and statues. It is 
only in such a climate that it does not seem inhuman to 
thrust a naked statue out of doors. Not to speak of 

20 their incongruity, how dreary do those white figures look 
at Fountains Abbey in that shrewd Yorksliire atmos- 
phere ! To put them there shows the same bad taste that 
led Prince Polonia,° as Thackeray calls him, to build an 
artificial ruin within a mile of Rome. But I doubt if the 

25 Italian garden will bear transplantation. Farther north, 
or under a less constant sunshine, it is but half-hardy at 
the best. Wifhin the city, the garden of the French 
Academy is my favorite retreat, because Httle frequented ; 
and there is an arbor there in which I have read comfort- 

30 ably (sitting where the sun could reach me) in January. 
By the way, there is something very agreeable in the way 



EARLIER ESSAYS 207 

these people have of making a kind of fireside of the sun- 
shine. With us it is either too hot or too cool, or we are 
too busy. But, on the other hand, they have no such 
thing as a chimney-corner. 

Of course I haunt the collections of art faithfully ; but 5 
my favorite gallery, after all, is the street. There I al- 
ways find something entertaining, at least. The other 
day, on my way to the Colonna Palace, I passed the 
Fountain of Tre\d, from which the water is now shut off 
on account of repairs to the aqueduct. A scanty rill of 10 
soap-sudsy water still trickled from one of the conduits, 
and, seeing a crowd, I stopped to find out what nothing 
or other had gathered it. One charm of Rome is that 
nobody has anything in particular to do, or, if he has, can 
always stop doing it on the slightest pretext. I found 15 
that some eels had been discovered, and a very vivacious 
hunt was going on, the chief Nimrods being boys. I 
happened to be the first to see a huge ee] wriggling from the 
mouth of a pipe, and pointed him out. Two lads at once 
rushed upon him. One essayed the capture with liis 20 
naked hands, the other, more pro\ddent, had armed him- 
self with a rag of woollen cloth with which to maintain 
his grip more securely. Hardly had this latter arrested 
his slippery prize, when a ragged rascal, watching liis 
opportunity, snatched away the prize, and instantly se- 25 
cured it by thrusting the head into his mouth, and clos- 
ing on it a set of teeth like an ivory vice. But alas for 
ill-got gain ! Rob Roy's° 

"Good old plan, 
That he should take who has the power, 30 

And he should keep who can," 



208 EARLIER ESSAYS 

did not serve here. There is scarce a square rood in 
Rome without one or more stately cocked hats in it, 
emblems of authority and pohce. I saw the flash of 
the snow-white cross-belts, gleaming through that dingy 
5 crowd like the panache° of Henri Quatre at Ivry, I saw the 
mad plunge of the canvas-shielded head-piece, sacred and 
terrible as that of Gessler;° and while the greedy throng 
were dancing about the anguilhceps, each taking his 
chance twdtch at the undulating object of all wishes, the 

lo captor dodging his head hither and thither, (vulnerable, 
like Achilles, only in his 'eel, as a British tourist would 
say,) a pair of broad blue shoulders parted the assailants 
as a ship's bows part a wave, a pair of blue arms, termi- 
nating in gloves of Berhn thread, were stretched forth, 

15 not in benediction, one hand grasped the slippery Briseis° 
by the waist, the other bestowed a cuff on the jaw-bone 
of Achilles, which loosened (rather by its authority than 
its physical force) the hitherto refractory incisors, a snuffy 
bandanna was produced, the prisoner was deposited in 

20 this temporary watch-house, and the cocked hat sailed 
majestically away with the property thus sequestered for 
the benefit of the state. 

"Gaudeant anguillse si mortuus sit homo ille, 
Qui, quasi morte reas, excrueiabat eas!"° 

25 If you have got through that last sentence 1 without 
stopping for breath, you are fit to begin on the Homer 
of Chapman, who, both as translator and author, has the 
longest wind, (especially for a comparison,) without being 
long-winded, of all writers I know anything of, not except - 

30 ing Jeremy Taylor.° 



NOTES 

CAMBRIDGE THIRTY YEARS AGO 

Title. Cambridge. This essay was published in 1853 
and is therefore a description of the Cambridge of a hun- 
dred years ago. For a delightful essay to parallel this one, 
the student is referred to "Old Cambridge" by Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson. 

Heading. Edelmann Storg. Lowell's title for W. W. 
Story, the noted sculptor, who spent a considerable period 
of his life in Rome. A life-long friend of Lowell's. 

2 : 9. terra incognita. Unknown or unfamiliar country. 

2 : 12. Beowulf. The hero in an Anglo-Saxon epic 
poem of the sixth century. 

2 : 14. Seauton. Yourself. From the accusative mas- 
culine singular of the Greek reflexive pronoun. The 
allusion is to TvQdi ceavrbv (gnothi seauton) know thy- 
self: inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. 

3 : 4. Tyrian purple. Also called Tyrian dye, ob- 
tained from various species of shellfish. Here, of course, 
used figuratively for the gorgeous fabric of imagination 
or fancy. 

3 : 27. Damascus. As much contentment may be 

secured in the domestic product as in that imported 

from Mount Lebanon, a range in Syria, and smoked in 

the narghile, which is an oriental pipe, in which the 

p 209 



210 NOTES 

smoke is passed through water. Damascus is the capital 
of Syria. 

4 : 8. John Bull, etc. England, France, Germany, 
and Ireland. 

4 : 20. Habitat. Natural or proper abode ; habitation. 

4 : 21. Barnum. Phineas T., 1810-1891 — was an 
American showman and circus proprietor, noted for 
his spectacular mode of advertising. 

5 : 5. Gentis cunabula. Cradle of the race. 

5 : 5. Livy. A Roman historian — 59 B.C.-17. a.d. 

6 : 5. Niebuhr. Karsten, 1733-1815 — a German 
traveler. 

5 : 7. Museo Borbonico. Afterwards called Muses 
Nazionale or National Museum, located in Naples. 

5:11. Rafaello. 1483-1520 ; a famous Italian painter, 
one of whose noted works is the Sistine Madonna. 

6 : 20. Parthenopean. The ancient and poetical name 
of Naples. Parthenope was a siren who threw herself 
into the sea in despair at not being able to beguile Ulysses 
by her songs. She was cast up drowned on the shore of 
Naples which was named for her. 

6 : 16. Ilex. The holly tree. 

6:21. Cappuccini. This refers to a convent of 
Franciscan nuns in Rome. 

7 : 4. Emerson's Sphinx. A poem by Emerson, one 

stanza of which reads : 

"Uprose the merry sphinx, 
And crouched no more in stone ; 
She melted into purple cloud ; 
She silvered in the moon ; 
She spired into a yellow flame ; 
She flowered in blossoms red ; 
She flowed into a foaming wave ; ^ 

She stood Monadnoc's head." 



NOTES 211 

7 : 6. Etruria. An ancient country, northwest of the 
Tiber in west central Italy. It was conquered by the 
Romans, 283 B.C. 

7 : 8. Pelasgi. A prehistoric race inhabiting the 
coasts of the Mediterranean. 

7 : 14. Huet. Pierre Daniel, 1630-1721 ; a noted 
French scholar and critic. 

7 : 20. Eld. Antiquity. 

8 : 19. Romulus. The legendary founder of Rome, 
B.C. 752 ; Numa, the second legendary king of Rome (715- 
672), successor to Romulus. 

9 : 28. A. H. C. Arthur Hugh Clough, a noted Eng- 
lish poet, who, in 1852, sailed with Lowell and Thackeray 
for Boston. Clough was about to seek his fortune in the 
new world. 

10:11. Tories. The name given to an English political 
party, which, at the time of the American Revolution, 
took sides with the king. 

11 : 14. Common Councils. A name given to a legis- 
lative branch of government in some American cities. 

12 : 5. Lord Percy. One of the chief commanders of 
the English army in the American Revolution. 

12 : 6. Virginia General. George Washington. 

12 : 9. Vassalls. Refers to the John Vassall family of 
colonial days. John Vassall was a member of the Vir- 
ginia company of London, and his name is inserted in its 
second charter of May 23, 1609, as " John Vassall, Gentle- 
man." His two sons, Samuel and William, acquired by 
purchase, as original proprietors, two-twentieths of all 
Massachusetts. 

12:11. Botolph. Saint; date of birth unknown; 
died about 680; the patron saint of Boston. 



212 NOTES 

12 : 13. Burgoyne. John, 172' -1792 — an English gen- 
eral who surrendered his army to Gates at Saratoga, 1777. 

12 : 15. Bandusia. A pleasant fountain near Venusia 
which was the birthplace of Horace and celebrated by 
him in song. 

12 : 19. Santa Scholastica. Saint Scholarship. 

12 : 27. Don Quixote. The hero of Cervantes' ro- 
mance of the same name, written in 1605. 

13 : 3. Plusquam Ciceronian, Greater than the elo- 
quence of Cicero. 

13 : 4. Salute vos, praestantissimae. I greet you, 
most excellent — . 

13 : 18. Americani, etc. All Americans, by the force 
of nature, are very deserving of the gallows. 

15:5. Luca della Robbia. (1399-1482) — a Floren- 
tine sculptor. In the latter part of his life he worked 
principally at terra-cotta reliefs, covered with enamel in 
polychrome. He founded a school for the production of 
Delia Robbia ware. 

15:11. Certosa. A Carthusian monastery. 

15 : 16. Parsee. This refers to the old Persian religious 
body of men, whose ancestors fled from Persia to India 
about the eighth century, on account of Mohammedan 
persecutions. 

16 : 2. Ichneumon. Literally this means a small ani- 
mal which tracks the crocodile and destroys its eggs. 

16 : 10. Gallic. Pertaining to ancient Gaul or mod- 
ern France. 

16:11. Saxonly. This has reference, by contrast 
with the Gallic fashion, to the Teutonic source; for ex- 
ample, the Germans and the English. 

16 : 19. Bacchus. The god of wine. 



NOTES 213 

17 : 7. Gratis. Freely ; without cost. 

17 : 12. Michael Angelo. Italian painter and sculp- 
tor, 1475-1564. 

17 : 23. Hottentot. A South African people who 
occupied the Cape Colony region when it was first entered 
by whites. 

17 : 25. Argos. A famous and beautiful city of Greece, 
the leading Dorian city in the eighth century B.C., noted 
for art, music, sculpture, and the drama. 

17:31. Frederick the Great. Frederick II, king of 
Prussia, 1740-1786. 

18 : 2. Bonaparte. Napoleon I ; Emperor of the 
French, 1804-1815. 

18 : 6. Bonhomme Richard. The vessel with which 
John Paul Jones, the American naval commander, de- 
feated the Serapis, 1779. 

19 : 6. Vates sacer. Holy prophet or seer. 

19 : 7. E. & W. I. East and West India goods (in- 
cluding china, spices, rum and molasses). In Under- 
wood's "Life of Lowell," p. 31 : " The W. I. Goods Store, 
with clusters of farmer's teams in front." 

19 : 27. Laodicean. Neither sweet nor sour. The 
church at Laodicea was neither zealous for nor against. 
Revelation iii. 14-16, " I know thy works, that thou art 
neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot." 

20:1. Ninevites. Referring to the statues in the 
ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. 

20 : 11. Herodotus. The father of History ; a Grecian 
who lived about 490-409 b.c. 

20 : 16. R. M. Royal Morse, the old village con- 
stable and auctioneer. (Cf . Edwin Bacon, " Literary 
Pilgrimages in New England," p. 319.) 



214 NOTES 

20 : 19. Jeremiah. A Hebrew prophet who uttered 
severe denunciations and lamentations; he began his 
career about 628 b.c. 

20 : 25. Hancock. John, 1737-1793 ; an American 
statesman ; signer of the Declaration of Independence ; 
first governor of Massachusetts, 1780. 

21 : 16. Parsons, Ames and Dexter. Theophilus Par- 
sons, American jurist, 1750-1813 ; Fisher Ames, American 
orator and statesman, 1758-1808 ; Samuel Dexter, 
American statesman, 1761-1816. 

21 : 17. Dana. Richard Dana, the head of the Boston 
bar in his day, was a native of Cambridge in 1699 ; as 
was his son Francis Dana, equally eminent, and followed 
in lineal succession by Richard Henry Dana, the poet ; 
and by his son of the same name, author of " Two Years 
Before the Mast." 

21 : 27. R. It is believed by some that oysters should 
not be eaten during the months whose names do not con- 
tain the letter R. 

22 : 8. DifEugere Nives. The snows disappear. 

23 : 28. Jam satis nivis. Already enough snow. 

24:1. Argo. The ship of the Argonauts, in Greek 
mythology. 

24 : 17. Sir John Franklin. English arctic explorer, 
1786-1847. 

25:9. Nimroud. (Nimrud.) An ancient Assyrian 
city, nineteen -miles below Nineveh. Its ruined pal- 
aces were excavated by Layard in 1848 and 1851. 
Many treasures from these ruins are now in the British 
Museum. 

25 : 21. Rembrandt. A Dutch painter, 1606-1669. 

26 : 18. Opportunity. The Lowell family motto was 



NOTES 215 

" Seize your chance." (Ferris Greenslet, " James Russell 
Lowell.") 

26 : 24. A. U. C. Anno Urbis ConditsB = in the year 
of the building of the city (Rome). 

26: 29. Torzelo. (Torcello.) A small island six miles 
from Venice, once of importance, now reminding one of 
Venice only in that it contains two ancient churches. 

27 : 6. Hourly. The omnibus that ran between Cam- 
bridge and Boston. 

27 : 17. Barataria. In Cervantes' " Don Quixote," the 
island town of which Saneho Panza was made governor 
and where his duties were so arduous that he soon gave 
up the position. 

27 : 19. Bienseance. A play upon the French word, 
meaning decorum or manners. 

27 : 30. Nimbus. Halo. 

28 : 19. Allston. Washington, an American painter 
and poet, 1779-1843 ; lived in Cambridge. 

28 : 28. Titianesque. In the style of Titian, the 
greatest of the Venetian painters. 

28 : 29. Boswell. The famous biographer of Samuel 
Johnson, a noted English writer. 

29 : 3. Justice. For an entertaining account of 
Shakespeare's youthful troubles, see Walter Savage Lan- 
dor's " The Citation of William Shakespeare." 

30:1. Colporteur. A traveling agent of a religious 
society who sells or gives away Bibles. 

30 : 13. Blackburn, etc. A group of early American 
portrait and historical painters, who flourished before 
1850. 

30 : 14. Brentford. The allusion is to the rival kings 
in the Duke of Buckingham's play, '* The Rehearsal." 



216 NOTES 

"United, yet divided, twain at once. 
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne." 

CowPER, The Task, Book 1, 1. 77. 

31 : 28. Cornwallis. A military masquerade formerly 
held in New England ; so called in allusion to the surren- 
der of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. 

31 : 31. Guy Fawkes. (1570-1606.) An English con- 
spirator ; his name is always associated with the famous 
Gunpowder Plot. 

32 : 16. Lyceum. A literary association for mutual 
improvement, usually by means of lectures. Very popular 
in the United States. 

32 : 19. Cotton Mather. 1663-1728. An American 
Congregational minister and writer. 

33 : 1. Mephistopheles. Spirit of evil in the Faust 
legend. 

33:6. City of Destruction. Cf. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's 
Progress." 

33 : 7. Miss Circe. A mythological character ; an 
enchantress. Lowell satirizes in the appellation, Miss, as 
he does in Mr. Comus, who is the god of revelry. 

33 : 20. Jehoiada-boxes. Metal boxes with a slot to 
receive coins. So called from the collection boxes made at 
command of Joash, king of Judah. Jehoiada was the high 
priest of Joash who, in 837 B.C., placed King Joash on the 
throne. See 2 Chron. xxiv. 6-11. 

33 : 28. Ninon. Anne, but more popularly Ninon de 
Lenclos ; a French beauty and social leader, whose salon 
was the rendezvous of many famous Frenchmen. 

33:29, Siamese twins. Eng and Chang, twins born in 
Siam in 1811, joined to one another by a short cartilaginous 
band. They were brought to America for exhibition in 1828. 



NOTES 217 

34 : 3. Accolade. A light blow with the flat of a 
sword upon the shoulders, as an indication that knight- 
hood is thus conferred. 

34 : 7. Barmecide. One who gives imaginary feasts. 
See the " Arabian Nights " for the imaginary feast given 
by one of the Barmecide family to the beggar, Schacabac. 

34 : 19. J. H. John Holmes, brother of Oliver 
Wendell Holmes. A member of the Whist Club, to which 
Lowell belonged. 

35:4. Timour. Also called Tamerlane — one of the 
greatest warrior-kings that ever lived, 1336-1405. He was 
the Tartar conqueror of India and Asia. 

35 : 9. Muggletonians. A religious sect founded by 
Lodovic Muggleton, a journeyman tailor, who set himself 
up for a prophet in 1651. 

35 : 13. Deedeed. A play upon the title D.D. = 
Doctor of Divinity. 

36 :17. Libre d'oro. Literally, book of gold. (Italian.) 

36 : 21. Pentateuch. The first five books of the Bible, 
taken collectively. 

37 : 12. Stylites. Early religious recluses who lived 
most of the time on the tops of pillars, without shelter, 
as an expression of their piety. The founder of the sect 
was Simeon Stylites, a Syrian ascetic, died 459 a.d. 

37 : 16. Dr. K. J. T. Kirkland, President of Harvard 
College from 1810 to 1828. 

38 : 20. Fountains. Fountains Abbey, near Ripon in 
Yorkshire, founded about 1135, considered to be the most 
perfect monastery in England. Lowell visited the ruins 
of this abbey in his travels. 

38 : 20. Golias. Bishop Golias was the head of a 
school of monks in Germany in the thirteenth century. 



218 NOTES 

Lowell's opinion was that Dr. Kirkland was better 
fitted to be the head of a mediaeval school of monks than 
to be the president of a modern university. 

39 : 25. Piscium et summa haesit genus ulmo. The 
race of fishes also climbs to the top of the elm. 

40 : 8. Ana. Of or pertaining to ; applied to a person 
with regard to his sayings or anecdotes concerning him, 
as, for example, " Kirklandana." 

41 : 2. Judge W. Probably Judge Wells, referred to 
in a letter from Lowell to Mrs. Francis G. Shaw, Elm- 
wood, January- 11, 1853. Cf. Norton, " Letters of 
LoweU," Vol. I. 

41 : 4. Brahmin Alcott. A. Bronson Alcott. 

41:22. Gratias. Offering " thanks." 

41 : 23. Abbey of Theleme. Cf. Rabelais' " Gar- 
gantua." The elegant and gay establishment whose 
motto was: " Fay ce que vouldras," which translated is: 
" Do as you please." 

41 : 25. Tam Marti quam Mercuric (Atqui magis Lyaeo) : 
— as much for Mars as for Mercury = equally qualified 
for war and diplomacy ; also more for LysBus. Lyseus 
was one of the names of Bacchus, the god of wine. 

42:1. Rechab. Cf. Bible, 2 /vtn^s x. 16. Rechabites 
is a name given to total abstainers from intoxicants. 

42 : 5. Med. Facs. In a letter of OHver W. Holmes 
to Phineas Barnes, Cambridge, Dec. 1828, we read : "I 
will send you ajeatalogue of the officers and students, and 
one of the Medical Faculty. This will need some expla- 
nation. It is a mock society among the students which 
meets twice a year in disguise, and after admitting mem- 
bers of the Junior class, distributes honorary degrees to 
distinguished men. The room where they meet is hung 



NOTES 219 

around with sheets and garnished with bones. They 
burn alcohol in their lamps and examine very curiously 
and facetiously the candidates for admission. Every 
three years they publish a catalogue in exact imitation 
of the Triennial catalogue published in the college. The 
degrees are given with all due solemnity to all the hons 
of the day." 

42:21. Ben Jonson. A very scholarly dramatist, 
contemporary of Shakespeare's. 

42 : 23. C. " We all knew the spot where Washing- 
ton took command of the army ; and the house (the Craigie 
House) where he dwelt." In 1837 Mr. Longfellow re- 
moved to this house. Cf. T. W. Higginson, " Old Cam- 
bridge." 

42 : 29. Spinoza. A Dutch Jewish philosopher, 1632- 
1677. His interpretation of life regarded the entire uni- 
verse as one universal substance, covering man and matter. 

43 : 8. Thebais. A Latin epic by Statins, a Roman 
poet of the first century. 

43:17. Montaigne. A French philosopher and essay- 
ist, 1533-1592. 

43 : 24. Anti-Sheffieldism. The town of Sheffield in 
Yorkshire, England, is noted for its manufacture of all 
kinds of cutlery. 

44: 17. P. " Dr. Popkin, who died in 1852, and who 
wore the last of the cocked hats, which, with his umbrella, 
is carefully preserved in the Cambridge Public Library." 
Cf. T. W. Higginson, " Old Cambridge," p. 23. 

44 : 24. Hymettian flowers. Flowers of Hymettus, a 
mountain of Attica, in ' Greece, famed for its heather 
blossoms, and its honey. 

45 : 6. Abderites. Inhabitants of Abdera in Thrace. 



220 NOTES 

45 : 7. Andromeda. The reference is to a tragedy of 
Euripides. 

45 : 10. Amaryllis or Neaera. Names found in classic 
pastoral poetry, given to shepherdesses and nymphs. 

45 : 10. Machiavelli. A Florentine statesman and 
writer, 1469-1527. 

45: 12. Sirens' isle. The habitation of the sirens or 
sea-nymphs in legendary lore. 

45 : 15. .ffiolic digamma. ^olia was a country in 
ancient Greece; digamma, the original, but early dis- 
used, sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. 

46 : 5. Toga. The distinctive outer garment of a 
Roman citizen. Dr. Popkin thus allowed the military to 
get the better of the civilian spirit. 

46: 23. Antique world. See " As You Like It," II. iii. 
57. 

47 : 16. Vassall, Lechmere, Oliver, and Brattle. Dis- 
tinguished colonial families of Cambridge. 

47 : 19. Etruscan Lucumos. Among the Etruscans, 
the head of a noble family. 

48 : 22. fugaces annos. Fleeting years. 

48 : 24. Dioscorides. A physician who lived about 
the middle of the first century, a.d. He was from Anaz- 
arbos in Cicilia, southeastern part of Asia Minor. He 
wrote a very voluminous work on pharmaceutics. 

48 : 25. Hercules de Saxonia. Lowell may have in 
mind Saxo Grammaticus, a famous Danish historian, 
since Saxo's labors would suggest those of Hercules. 
Saxonia is the land of the Saxons. 

49: 1. Junius. The pen name of the writer of some 
famous political letters, between 1769 and 1772, whose 
identity, though often heralded as discovered, was never 



NOTES 221 

known. The mare*s-nest refers to the amazing literary 
and political discoveries, which all proved worthless, made 
in the search for the true author. 

49 : 6. Jenner. Edward Jenner (1749-1823) ; Eng- 
lish physician who introduced vaccination. 

49: 18. " S." In Higginson's " Old Cambridge " we 
read: — "that delightful and sunny representative of 
southern France, that Hving Gil Bias in hair-powder and 
pigtail, Francis Sales." He was " the Franco-Spanish 
teacher, who lived till 1854." 

61 : 15. Janus Bifrons. Two-faced Janus ; a charac- 
ter in Roman mythology with two faces, looking east and 
west. 

51 : 17. Porta San Giovanni. Gate of St. John ; a 
modern gate of Rome, built by Gregory XIII, in the six- 
teenth century. 

51 : 24. mirabilia. Wonders. 

A MOOSEHEAD JOURNAL 

Title. Moosehead. Moosehead Lake is located in 
Piscataquis and Somerset counties in Maine, and is thirty- 
six miles long. 

52 : 8. Cumsean. Relating to the ancient city Cumae 
in Campania, Italy. 

52 : 9. Caledonian Lady. Caledonia is the ancient 
name for Scotland. The reference is to Scott's " Lady of 
the Lake." Ellen's Isle is in Loch Katrine, celebrated in 
the legendary history of Scotland. 

52 : 12. Digby. Sir Kenelm, 1603-1665, an Enghsh 
author. 

52 : 16. Empedocles. (455?-395 b.c.) — a Greek poet, 



222 NOTES 

physicist, and philosopher ; said to have cast himself into 
^tna. 

53:14. Macheath. A highwayman in Gay's "Beg- 
gar's Opera," who has difficulty in choosing between his 
loves, as is indicated in the lines : 

"How happy could I be with either 
Were t'other dear charmer away." 

53 : 19. Franconia Notch. The Franconia Mountains 
are located in the western part of the White Mountains, 
Grafton County, N. H. The Old Man of the Mountain is 
the famous profile, the " Great Stone Face " on the moun- 
tain top. 

53 : 30. Juvenalian. Juvenal was a Roman satirical 
poet, born in 50 and died 130. 

54: 10. Nunc dimittis. " Now lettest thou thy serv- 
ant depart in peace." 

54 : 14. Socratic. Socrates was an Athenian phi- 
losopher, born B.C. 460 and died 399. 

54 : 23. Pincian. Adjective formed from Pincio, cele- 
brated public gardens of Rome, elevated above the sur- 
rounding city. 

55 : 4. Tancred. Norman leader in the first Crusade, 
who died 1112. 

55 : 8. impromptu. Off-hand, without preparation. 

55 : 9. Eumenides. The more pleasing name given 
by the Greeks-to the Furies, because it was dangerous to 
utter their true name of Eurinyes, the avengers. 

56: 15. Scythian. Scythia was the ancient name for 
parts of Europe and Asia, now in the Russian Empire. 

58 : 1. Pied Piper of Hamelin. For the explanation of 
this, see Robert Browning's poem of this title. 



NOTES 223 

58 : 29. Sorbonists : ego amat. The former refers to 
the doctors of the Sorbonne, an institution of theology, 
science, and literature in Paris. " Ego " is first person 
singular; " amat " is third person singular. 

59 : 18. Shenstone. Johnson's favorite stanza from 
Shenstone, as quoted by Boswell in his " Life of Johnson " 
is: 

"I prized every hour that went by, 
Beyond all that had pleased me before ; 
But now they are gone and I sigh, 
And I grieve that I prized them no more." 

59:21. Skull of Yorick. Cf. the play of " Hamlet," 
the grave-digger's scene. "Hamlet," V. i. 198. 

60:13. Tityrus-like. A character in 1 "Eclogue," 
Virgil ; representing Virgil in some parts, in others, an old 
slave in his employment: " You, Tityrus, reclining under 
the covert of a spreading beech, are practising a pastoral 
lay on a slender pipe." 

60 : 19. Vetturino. Hackney-coach driver. 

61 : 21. Procrustean. Referring to Procrustes, a legend- 
ary Greek robber, who is said to have tortured cap- 
tives by stretching their limbs if too short, or cutting them 
off if too long, to fit a certain bed. 

62 : 12. O Shenstone. Lowell probably has in mind 
the last stanza of Shenstone's poem, entitled " Written at 
an Inn at Henley," which reads as follows : 

"Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round, 
Where'er his stages may have been, 
May sigh to think he still has found 
His warmest welcome at an inn." 

63 : 10. Capri. Celebrated island in the Bay of 
Naples. 



224 NOTES 

64 : 12. Hellespont and Peloponnesus. The former 
referring to the long narrow strait across which Leander 
swam ; the latter to the Peloponnesian War in ancient 
Greek history. 

65 : 14. Canning or Kenning. Doing or knowing; 
referring to the speculations of Carlyle and others on the 
root meaning of the word King. " He is called Rex, Regu- 
lator, Roi; our name is still better: King, Konning, which 
means Can-ning, Ableman." Carlyle: "The hero as 
king," in " Heroes and Hero Worship." King, in fact, 
is from Anglo-Saxon, cynn, tribe, and denotes the Tribe 
Head or Leader. 

65 : 29. Auspex. Bird-seer ; one who foretells future 
events from his observations of birds. 

66 : 14. Dodo. A large extinct bird or pigeon. It 
became extinct toward the latter part of the seventeenth 
century. 

66 : 17. 'Roostick war. In 1837-1838 the unsettled 
boundary between Maine and New Brunswick nearly led 
to active hostilities on the Aroostook River. 

68 : 7. Columbaria. Literally, dove-cotes. Satirical 
usage. 

68 : 28. Juan Fernandez. A group of islands in the 
Pacific Ocean, thought by some to have been the solitary 
residence of Alexander Selkirk, or Robinson Crusoe. 

69 : 7. Louis Quinze. Louis XV of France, from 
1715-1774. ^ 

70 : 18. Pretorian, Janizaries, and Mamelukes. The 
first refers to the Pretorian body-guard of the Roman 
emperors, who, at times, set up and deposed emperors; 
the second, to the Turkish body-guard of the Sultan ; the 
third, to a military corps that ruled Egypt until 1517, 



NOTES 225 

after having been sold as fighting slaves to the Sultan of 
Egypt in the thirteenth century. 

73 : 7. Nil admirari. To wonder at nothing, however 
marvelous. 

73 : 8. Prester John. A mediaeval legendary Christian 
priest and king. He is king of Ethiopia in the Orlando 
Furioso of Ariosto. 

74 : 5. Cardinal Richelieu. A French ecclesiastic and 
statesman ; prime-minister of Louis XIII. 

74 : 12. Pre-Raphaelite. A name given to a follower 
of the " Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood " which practised 
the truth and earnestness in art existing before the time 
of the Italian painter Raphael. 

74:13. salaeratus. Literally "aerated salt"; our 
common baking soda. 

74 : 17. Lethe. The stream of Oblivion in the lower 
world. 

75 : 5. Basia. Kisses. 

75:6. Secundus. Johannes Secundus, 1511-1536, a 
Dutch poet, famed for his Latin lyrics and Elegiacs. 
His most noted poem " Basia " was published in 1536. 

75 : 18. Wongen. A hut on the shore. 

77 : 26. Thundering Legion. A popular name for the 
Twelfth Legion in the army of imperial Rome. 

78 : 6. Batavian. Batavia is the capital of the Dutch 
East Indies, on the northern coast of Java, and the chief 
commercial city in the East Indies. Gin was first dis- 
tilled by the Dutch. 

80 : 4. Napier. John, a Scotchman who invented 
logarithms. 

80 : 15. Laudari a laudato. To be praised by one who 
is praised. 
Q 



226 NOTES 

80:25. Helen. (Cf. Greek and Roman mythology.) 
She was the daughter of Jupiter and Leda, and the wife 
of Menelaus, king of Sparta. 

80: 25. Merlin. A famous magician of alleged super- 
natural origin, celebrated in the tales and romances of 
chivalry ; contemporary with King Arthur. 

80 : 27. avag avSpcov. Ruler or prince of men. 

81 : 18. St. Mark. A reference to St. Mark's church 
in Venice. 

81 : 31. Sierra. A ridge of mountains and craggy rocks. 

82 : 2. Zeus. The Greek name of Jupiter, the king of 
gods and men. 

83 : 16. Sitzbad. Literally, sitting bath. 

85 : 6. Telemachus. Lowell's own note to this reads : 
'* This was my nephew Charles Russell Lowell, who fell 
at the head of his brigade in the battle of Cedar Creek." 
In Homer's " Odyssey " Telemachus is the son of Ulysses 
and Penelope. 

85:21. Deacon-seat. Hewn log used by lumbermen 
as a bench. 

85 : 23. Salle a manger. (French) ; dining-room. 

86 : 8. Table d'hote. A meal served at fixed hours 
at a fixed price for the entire meal; to be distinguished 
from " a la carte," that is, the plan by which one eats 
what he chooses and pays for each item. Lowell's sen- 
tence is obscure in the light of this present use of the 
above expression. Literally, the meaning is " host's 
table." In the earlier European hotels the host usually 
sat at the head of the table. 

87 : 18. " O Ozymandias," etc. This line is taken 
from Shelley, and is a modern impression of the spirit of 
ancient Egypt. The lines from Shelley read : 



NOTES 227 



'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies. 



And on the pedestal these words appear : 
' My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. 
Look on my works. Ye Mighty, and despair.' 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away." 

87 : 27. Hincks and Rawlinson. Rev. Edward Hincks 
was noted, for his knowledge of Assyrian and Egyptian 
inscriptions; born in Ireland, 1791, died, 1866; George 
Rawlinson was an English orientalist and historian, 
born 1812, died 1902. 

88:1. Kalends. The kalends, nones, and ides were 
Roman divisions of the months. In the Greek kalends 
is a Roman proverb, Ad kalendes Grcecas, for a day that 
will never come ; for the Greeks had no Kalends. 

88:11. Colosseum. The great amphitheatre in Rome. 

88 : 15. Selva Selvaggia. Wild wood or forest. (Ital- 
ian.) 

88:16. Arden. See Shakespeare's "As You Like 
It " for the Forest of Arden as the scene of this play. 

88 : 22. Laker. Lake trout. 

89 : 1. St. Jerome. 340-420. One of the fathers of 
the church. He made the Latin translation of the Bible 
known as the Vulgate. 

THOREAU 

Title. Thoreau. Henry David, author and philos- 
opher, who lived in New England from 1817 to 1862. 



228 NOTES 

He was a great lover of outdoor life and the beauties of 
nature. His noted work is " Walden," in which he gives 
an intimate account of his " hermit " life at Walden. 
The student should acquaint himself with this work in 
order to appreciate properly Lowell's estimate of the man 
and his work. It may be of interest to note that Lowell, 
in his review of Thoreau's " A Week on the Concord and 
Merrimack Rivers," as published by Lowell in The Massa- 
chusetts Quarterly Review for Dec. 1849, is appreciative of 
Thoreau ; somewhat in contrast to the spirit of this essay. 

90 : 5. Transcendental Movement. The New Eng- 
land school of philosophy, one of whose chief advocates 
was Emerson. It placed the spiritual in man above the 
material, and also emphasized the " self-sufficiency " of 
the individual. 

90 : 8. Sartor Resartus. A noted work by Carlyle 
which contains much of his philosophy. The title means 
the " patcher repatched " or the " tailor retailored." 

90 : 10. Sancta Clara. 1644-1709 ; Augustinian 
monk; court-preacher at Vienna; witty and satirical 
writer, the miscellaneous contents of whose book " Etwas 
fiir AUe " (Something for Everybody) suggested to Lowell 
the similarity to Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus." 

90 : 12. Ecce nunc, etc. Behold, now is the accepted 
time. 

90 : 15. Lady Montague. An EngHsh author, 1689- 
1762 ; noted for her letters and literary criticisms, notably 
on Fielding, Smollett, and Richardson. She had a wide 
acquaintance among the literary people of her time. 

90 : 16. Ygdrasil. Norse mythology. The world-tree 
whose roots and branches bind together heaven, earth, 
and hell. An eagle sits in the top of the tree. 



NOTES 229 

90 : 20. Redeunt Saturnia regna. The golden age 
returns. 

91 : 5. George Fox. 1624-1691 ; an English religious 
reformer, and founder of the Society of Friends. 

91 : 8. Marlborough. Duke of, an EngUsh general 
who defeated the French at Blenheim, Aug. 13, 1704. 

91 : 20. Thor or Budh. The former, the Norse god of 
war and thunder; the latter (Buddha), the founder of 
Buddhism, an oriental religion. 

91 : 22. Fifth Monarchy men. A sect of English 
fanatics in the days of the Puritans, who maintained that 
Christ was about to come a second time to the earth, and 
estabhsh the fifth universal monarchy. The four preceding 
monarchies were the Assyrian, the Persian, the Macedo- 
nian, and the Roman. 

91 : 27. Shinar. An ancient country along the lower 
Tigris and Euphrates. 

91 : 30. Diphilus. One of the chief Athenian poets of 
the New Comedy ; and a dramatist. Of the third century 
B.C., contemporary of Menander. Uncial. Uncial letters. 
(LitteroB unciales) inch letters. Large, rounded manuscript 
letters, resembling modern capitals but more rounded. 

92 : 23. Philisterei. The same as Phihstinism, a word 
that characterizes low aims in life. 

92 : 24. Erasmus and Reuchlin. The latter was a Ger- 
man humanist and Hebrew student. The reference is to 
the Byzantine method of pronouncing Greek, or pronounc- 
ing it as a Hving language, as opposed to the Erasmian. 

93 : 10. Abana and Pharpar. Rivers in Damascus. 
See 2 Kings vi for the Biblical allusion. 

93 : 17. Le roi est mort, etc. The king is dead : long 
live the king. 



230 NOTES 

95 : 9. Phi Beta Kappa Society. A Greek letter hon- 
orary fraternity, membership into whose ranks depends 
upon high standing at college. 

95:16. Abelard. Pierre; a French philosopher; 
1079-1142. 

95 : 17. Fichte. Johann Gottlieb, a German philos- 
opher, 1762-1814. 

95:24. Rabelais. 1483 (?)-1553; a French writer 
characterized by coarse and grotesque satire and humor. 

95 : 30. Pythagorean. This refers to the mystical 
philosophy and doctrines propounded by Pythagoras, a 
Greek philosopher of the sixth century b.c. 

96 : 19. Bia and Kparos. Violence or force, and power 
or authority. 

97 : 27. Apemantus. A churlish philosopher, in Shake- 
speare's " Timon of Athens." 

97:31. Ossian. A cycle of poems by James Mac- 
pherson, purporting to be a translation from the Gaelic 
of Ossian, a legendary hero of the third century ; pub- 
lished 1760-1763. 

100 : 2. Concetti. Plural form of " concetto," meaning, 
in literary criticism, a conceit, fanciful idea or whim. 

100 : 9. Brazen Age. The age of war and violence. 

100:31. Montaigne. A French philosopher and 
essayist, 1533-1592. 

102:11. *' On touche encore a son temps, etc." A 
man is still of his time and very strongly even when he 
rejects it. 

102: 11. Stylites. See note to 37: 12. 

102 : 23. La Chevrette. The reference is to " The 
Hermitage," a small house on the estate of La Chevrette, 
near Montmorency, in France, belonging to Madame 



NOTES 231 

D'Epinay, in which, in 1756, Jean Jacques Rousseau 
attempted, not very successfully, to retire from the world. 

102 : 26. Kleinwinkel. German word; meaning, " little 
corner." 

102:31. Salon. Parlor or drawing-room. 

103 : 3. Turgot. A French statesman, 1727-1781. 

105:26. Persian poet. Omar Khayyam; 1025(?)- 
1123; author of the " Rubaiyat," translated by Edward 
Fitzgerald. 

105:31. Euphorbus. A Trojan son of Panthous, 
slain by Menelaus in the Trojan war. 

106 : 10. George Sand. Pen-name of Armantine 
Dudevant, French novelist, 1804-1876. 

107 : 3. Magnis tamen, etc. He failed in his great 
attempt. 

107 : 23. Claude Lorraine. Pseudonym of Claude 
Gelee, 1600-1682, a French landscape painter. The 
name Claude Lorraine glass is given to a tinted glass 
which gives to the object viewed a coloring characteristic 
of Claude Lorraine's works. 

107 : 25. White's Selborne. " The Natural History 
of Selborne," by Gilbert White, London, 1789. 

107 : 27. Donne, Browne, Novalis. The first two were 
English writers, the last a Prussian poet, whose works are 
difficult to understand, and whose popularity is therefore 
limited. 

AT SEA 

108. Title. At Sea. See also Washington Irving's 
account of his sea-trip in the " Sketch Book," entitled 
" The Voyage." 



232 NOTES 

108:2. Lucretius. Latin poet; 95-52 b.c. ; the lines 
referred to, translated, are : 

"'Tis sweet, when violent winds roughen the sea, to view from 
the land the toils of others ; not that it is pleasant to see others 
in distress, but because one is glad to know one's self secure." 

108 : 13. Petrarch. A noted Italian poet, born 1304, 
and died 1374. 

108 : 16. Chateaubriand. Francois Auguste, a French 
author, born 1768, died 1848. 

109 : 5. Tete-a-tete. Private conversation ; literally, 
head to head. (French.) 

109 : 6. Ne quid nimis. Literally, nothing to excess ; 
or, freely, moderation in all things. 

109: 21. W. M. T. and A. H. C. William Makepeace 
Thackeray and Arthur Hugh Clough, the former, a noted 
English novelist ; the latter, an English poet. 

110 : 19. Calderon. A noted Spanish dramatic author, 
born about 1600, died 1681 ; a tendency to use elaborate 
figures is a characteristic of his work. 

110 : 27. Gradus ad Parnassum, a thesaurus. Steps 
to Parnassus, a treasure-house or repository of words. 

112 : 24. Koran. The scriptures of the Mohammedans. 

113 : 4. Grouty. An English dialect word, meaning 
grimy or muddy. 

113 : 7. Chapman. George, English dramatic poet 
and translator of Homer; 1557-1634. 

113 : 23. Edda, Minnesingers. The former, mytho- 
logical or heroic songs in the Old Norse or Icelandic ; the 
latter, German lyric poets and musicians, who flourished 
from about the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the 
fourteenth century. 



NOTES 233 

114:31. Dire, redire, et me contredire. (French.) 
Literally, to state, to repeat, and to contradict myself. 

114:33. Montagna bruna. (Italian.) Literally, 
gloomy or dark mountains. 

115:3. Faustus, etc. The first a play by Marlowe; 
with this character as the hero ; the second, the hero in 
Byron's poem of this name ; the third, a famous legendary 
hero of Germany, the subject of an ancient ballad of the 
same name, and of Wagner's modern opera. 

115 : 7. Outre-Mer. The title of a book by Long- 
fellow; it means, "beyond the sea." 

115: 27. Professor Owen. Richard Owen, an English 
zoologist ; born 1804, died 1892. 

116 : 24. Hakluyt and Purchas. The former, Richard 
Hakluyt, 1553-1616, author of " Voyages " and " Dis- 
coveries " ; the latter, Samuel Purchas, 1577-1626, author 
of " Pilgrimage and Pilgrims." 

117 : 9. Hortus siccus. (Latin.) An herbarium ; 
literally, " a dry garden." 

117 : 20. St. Anthony of Padua. *' II Santo," the 
sepulchral church in Padua, is named after St. Anthony, 
born at Lisbon, 1195 ; died at Arcella, 1231. 

117 : 22. Sir John Hawkins. An English admiral ; 
born 1532, died 1595. 

118 : 4. Thor. The god of war and thunder in Norso 
mythology. 

118 : 7. Marco Polo. A Venetian traveler*, 1254-1324. 

118 : 19. El Dorado. Any region rich in gold, such as 
that sought for in the New World by the Spanish con- 
querors and explorers. California was called by this 
name after the discovery of gold there in 1848. 

118 : 19. Bruce. James, a Scottish traveler in Abyssinia. 



234 NOTES 

118 : 29. Acephali. Imaginary men or animals with- 
out heads. 

119: 1. Roc. A fabulous bird of prey of enormous 
size, in Arabian and Persian legend. 

119: 4. Kent. Certain of the men of Kent fabled to 
be born with tails, as a punishment for the murder of 
Thomas a Becket, by their ancestors. 

119 : 5. Unicorn. A fabulous animal, with a single 
straight horn in the centre of the forehead, and the body 
of a horse. 

119 : 7. Fountain of Youth. A wonderful fountain 
whose waters were fabled to renew youth. 

119 : 7. Thessalian. Magical, from the ancient repu- 
tation of the district. 

119 : 9, Amazons of Orellana. Orellana was a Span- 
ish explorer who gave the name to the Amazon River. 
He found there a nation of fighting women, called Amazons 
by the Spaniards. 

119 : 17. Maelstrom. A famous whirlpool off the 
coast of Norway. Cf. Poe's famous story of this name. 
It has disappeared and Lowell fears it never existed. 

IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

120 : 23. European Mrs. Grundy. In Morton's com- 
edy "Speed the Plough," the wife of a lucky farmer; 
envied by Dame Ashfield, a neighbor, who continually 
exclaims, " What will Mrs. Grundy say? " Hence a 
censor of morals, etc. 

121 : 13. Sierra Morena of Don Quixote. The rugged 
mountains, the scene of many incidents in Don Quixote, 

121 : 26. Raphaels, Correggios. Italian painters. 



NOTES 235 

122: 1. Spitzbergen. A group of almost uninhabited 
islands in the Arctic Ocean, east of Greenland and north of 
Norway. 

124:14. En rapport. (French.) In sympathetic rela- 
tions. 

124:31. St. Elmo's fires. The electric lights seen 
playing about the masts of ships in stormj'^ weather. 

124:31. Marvell's corposants. The same as St. 
Elmo's fires. " Corpos sanctos " is Portuguese for holy 
bodies. Note the play on the words in " come pleasants." 
Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678. The reference is to his poem, 
" First Anniversary " : 

" While bale Tritons to the shipwreack guide 
And corposants along the tackling slide." 

ITALY 

127 : 2. Subiaco. A town of central Italy, in the 
Sabine Mountains, on the Teverone (ancient Anio), thirty- 
three miles east by north of Rome. 

127 : 3. Ponte Sant' Antonio. The Rialto bridge in 
Venice, built in 1592 from the plans of Antonio de Ponte. 

127 : 8. Tivoli. Eighteen miles east northeast of 
Rome. It was a favorite resort of the ancient Romans. 

127 : 16. Sabine. The name of an ancient people of 
central Italy, with whom the Romans married by force. 

127 : 23. Papuan. Papua or New Guinea, an exten- 
sive island of the Eastern Archipelago, lying north of 
Australia. 

127 : 23. Ode. " Ode on the Intimations of Immor- 
tality." 

128: 1. Byron. Cf. " Childe Harold," Canto Fourth. 



236 NOTES 

128 : 3. Terni. A town of Italy, forty-nine miles north 
northeast of Rome. Noted for the falls of Terni, a few 
miles from the town, descending 650 feet in three leaps. 

128 : 12. Velino. A river of central Italy ; the falls 
of the Velino are among the finest cascades of Europe. 
Cf. Byron's " Childe Harold," 72d stanza of the Fourth 
Canto, which closes with the lines : 

"Resembling 'mid the torture of the scene 
Love watching madness with unalterable mien." 

128 : 15. Orrilo. A magician and robber who lived at 
the mouth of the Nile. He was the son of an imp and 
fairy. He had the power of restoring his limbs when 
lopped off, and also his head. Cf. Ariosto : " Orlando 
Furioso." 

128 : 22. Giro. Tour or circuit. 

128 : 23. Sibilla. Monte Sibilla, a summit of the 
Apennines in central Italy. 

128 : 25. Inglesi. The English. 

128 : 28. Claude. A noted landscape painter, born 
in Lorraine, in 1600; he was a great student of Italian 
scenery. See note to 107 : 23. 

128 : 29. Piranesi. Italian engraver and designer, 
born in Venice, 1720 ; especially noted for his engravings 
of architecture and ruins; Rembrandt, the noted Dutch 
painter. 

129 : 1. Girandola. Catherine-wheel, a circular win- 
dow with divisions arranged like spokes. 

129 : 16. Anio. A river in central Italy. 

129 : 19. Gaetani. Inhabitants of Gaeta, a strongly 
fortified seaport of Italy, forty miles northwest of Naples. 
It has a handsome cathedral. 



NOTES 237 

130 : 6. Neapolitan. A native or resident of Naples. 

130 : 10. Fortunatus. The hero of a German popular 
romance of the fifteenth century, remembered for his 
inexhaustible purse and wishing-cap. 

130:11. Piccolo quarto d'ora. Little quarter of an 
hour. 

130 : 11. Grosso. A silver coin formerly in use, worth 
nearly three pence. 

130 : 21. Ennius. A Roman epic poet, born of a Greek 
family, about 239 b.c. 

130 : 28. Dr. "Wistar. A noted American physician 
born at Philadelphia, 1761 , and died 1818. Tiburtine refers 
to Tibur, which is modern Tivoli. Lowell is evidently 
playing on the idea of coughing, thereby calling in the 
physician. 

130 : 28. Mecsenas or MaBcenas. A celebrated pa- 
tron of literature at Rome, born about 70 b.c. 

131 : 3. Ariosto. Famous Italian poet ; 1474-1533. 

131 : 9. Italia Unita. United Italy. 

131 : 28. Eh ! per Bacco ! Ah, by Bacchus ! 
' 132 : 3. Non saprei, signoria. I don't know, your 
excellency. 

133 : 6. Ciceroni. Guides. 

133 : 25. Praeceps Anio. Swift Anio. 

133 : 27. Dissolve frigus. The frost melts. Roderick 
Random is a novel by Smollett, published 1748. 

134 : 8. Caffre. Same as Kafir, a member of a group of 
South-African Bantu tribes. 

135 : 4. Mazeppa. A Cossack chief, Hetman, or 
headman, of the Cossacks, born 1644, died 1709. The 
allusion here is to the story of his ride on the back of a 
wild horse, as told in Byron's " Mazeppa." 



238 NOTES 

135 : 19. Eccomi qu&. Here I am. 

135 : 27. Tabula in naufragio. Plank in a shipwreck. 

136:1. Archimedes. Greek mathematician; b.c. 
287(?)-212. The problem of Archimedes was to find a 
fulcrum for his levers, " If I had a irbv crrw (a place where) " 
he said, " to place my levers, I could move the world." 

136 : 10. Forestiero. Foreigner. 

136 : 22. Waterton, Charles, English naturalist and 
traveler, 1782-1865. 

137 : 8. Fiat experimentum in corpore vili. Let the 
experiment be made upon a worthless object. 

137 : 9. Christopher Sly. Drunkard in the introduc- 
tion to Shakespeare's " Taming of the Shrew." 

137:24. Perche mi scerpi, etc. Why sever me? 
Hast thou no feeling of sympathy whatever? 

138 : 5. Staffa. Fingal's cave, in the island of Staffa, 
seven miles west of Hull in Scotland, is 288 feet long, 117 
feet high. Fingal is a mythical hero whose name occurs 
in Highland (Scotch) ballads and traditions. 

138 : 30. Conclusum est ; periisti ! It is the end ; 
thou shalt die ! 

139 : 7. Pan. Cf. " The Dead," a poem by Mrs. 
Browning, founded on the legend that when Christ died 
on the cross a cry swept across the sea that, " Great Pan 
is dead ! " 

139 : 21. Ecco, Signoria. Behold, your excellency. 

139 : 31. Oscurante. Black. The terms black and 
red were used to designate political parties in Italy. 

140:4. Jacob' s-ladders. An allusion to the ladder 
which Jacob dreamt about. Cf . Genesis xxviii. 12. 

140 : 25. Poverino. Poor fellow. 

141 : 21. Porch eria. Filth or trash. 



NOTES 239 

142: 11. Tubal Cain. The first artificer in brass and 
iron. Cf. Bible, Genesis iv. 22. 

142 : 15. Incedit rex. Walks like a king. 

142 : 30. Monsieur Le Feu. Mr. Fire. 

144 : 2. Favorisca. Do me the favor. 

144 : 6. Vetturini. Coachmen. 

144 : 13. Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum. 
Literally, " and the brave Gyas, as well as the brave 
Cloanthus." These are characters in Virgil, about whom 
little is known. 

144:21. Combinazione. Agreement; literally, com- 
bination or happy chance. 

144:28. Witenagemot. The group of "wise men" 
gathered to give advice to the king and through him to 
propose a course of action to the folk, in Anglo-Saxon 
England. Cf. Green's " Short History of the English 
People." 

144:28. Scudi. Singular, " scudo," a crown (dollar). 

145 : 3. Quattro diavoli. Four devils I 

145:4. Macche! What! 

145 : 19. Buonamano, Tip. 

146:24. Morra. Also spelled Mora, "a game which 
consists in throwing out the hand with one or more fingers 
extended, and at the same time uttering a guess at the 
number they will make when added to the number si- 
multaneously extended by the other player." Hoare: 
" Itahan Dictionary." 

147 : 9. Povero stalliere, signori. Poor stable-boy, sirs. 

147: 18. Mantis religiosa. The praying mantis, a 
well-known voracious insect, remarkable for a peculiar 
method of crossing its forelegs when waiting for prey, 
resembling hands folded in prayer. 



240 NOTES 

148 : 14. Ecco San Pietro ! Here is Saint Peter's ! 

149 : 15. Cenci ! Rags ! 

150 : 8. Tufo. Sandstone. Breccia, a rock consisting 
of mixed fragments. 

150:17. "Vestiges." A reference to "Vestiges of 
the Natural History of Creation," published by Robert 
Chambers, anonymously, 1844. 

150 : 24. Doganiere. Custom-house officer. 

162 : 10. Albergo. Hotel. 

162 : 12. Rinfresco. Refreshment. 

152:18. Clothe. (Classical mythology.) One of the 
Fates, represented as holding the distaff, and sometimes 
as spinning the thread of life. 

167 : 2. Pesci di mare. Sea fish. 

167 : 17. Albergatrice. Hostess. 

168 : 17. Belle ! Beautiful ! 

169 : 22. Festa. Feast day or holiday. 

160 : 9. Froissart. Noted French historian, 1337- 
1410(?). The allusion is to the beautifully illuminated 
manuscripts of his Chronicles. 

160 : 13. Afrite. (Mohammedan mythology) a demon 
or monstrous giant. 

160 : 19. Seomadissima. Very bad, uncomfortable. 

161:9. Heraclitus. "The Naturalist"; Greek phi- 
losopher, lived about 500 b.c. 

162 : 10. Pizzicarolo's. Pork butcher's. 

162 : 24. Birbone ! Rascal ! 

162:31. Birbante! Knave! 

163 : 3. Andate vi far friggere ! Go and get frozen I 
Ditto, the same. 

163 : 28. Santo diavolo ! Holy Satan ! 

164 : 3. Pappagallo. Parrot. 



NOTES 241 

164: 25. " Che per poco," etc. " A little more and I 
should quarrel with thee." Virgil's reproof to Dante in 
the Inferno for stopping to listen eagerly to a quarrel, 
because, as he said, " To hear such wrangling is a joy for 
vulgar minds." 

166 : 19. Strada scomodissima. Very bad street. 

168 : 29. Benissimo. Very well. 

169 : 17. Aleatico. Name of a Tuscan grape and wine. 
169 : 23. Frittata. Omelette. 

170 : 9. Fiasco. Flask or wine-bottle, 

170 : 19. Recitare. To recite, to play a part. 

170 : 22. Septentrions. Northerners. 

171 : 2. Terrae filius. Son of the earth ; a man of 
obscure or low origin. 

171 : 3. Buonamano. See 145 : 19. 

171 : 12. Largesse. Bounty, charity. 

172 : 6. Bishop Wilkins. John Wilkins, an English 
divine, Bishop of Chester ; born 1614, died 1672. 

172 : 20. In situ. In its original position. 

172 : 23. Scalinata. Flight of stairs. 

172 : 26. Padre Eterno. Eternal father. 

173 : 5. Vino asciutto. Dry wine, that is, sour wine. 

174 : 5. Sepia. A brown pigment used in water-colors. 

175 : 18. Tom Corygate. An English traveler, intro- 
duced table-forks into England ; walked from Palestine 
to India ; born 1577, died 1617. 

176 : 9. La Paletta. The name of the inn. 

176:14. Chie? Who is it? 

176 : 15. Due forestieri. Two foreigners. 

176 : 24, Frittata col prosciutto. Omelette with ham. 

176 : 30. Eccoci finalmente arrivati ! Here we are 
finally arrived I 



242 NOTES 

177 : 23. Cellini. An Italian artist in metal, gold, 
silver, and bronze ; 1500-1571. 

178 : 19. Wir haben ja aufgeklart. We have indeed 
cleared up. 

179 : 4. Lampadone. Gas lamp. 

180 : 27. Hobbinol. Fictitious name of countryman 
in Spenser's " Shepherd's Calendar." 

181:31. Locandiera. Innkeeper's wife. 

182 : 3. Bella. Beautiful. 

182 : 5. Con permesso. With permission ; allow me. 
182 : 9. Aplomb. Stolidity. 

A FEW BITS OF ROMAN MOSAIC 

183. Title. Mosaic. Decorative inlaid work, made 
up of small pieces of glass, stone, or other material. This 
is, of course, a figurative title, suggested by the miscel- 
laneous character of the article. 

183 : 12. Civita Vecchia. " Old city " — name of a small 
seaport town about twenty-seven miles west of Rome. It 
was once one of the territories of the church. 

183 : 13. Via Aurelia. Aurelian road ; one of the high- 
ways leading into Rome. Should be " Aurelio." 

183 : 23. Charon. The ferryman of the river Styx, 
in Hades, in classical mythology. 

184 : 10. Bernini. Giovanni Lorenzo, an Italian sculp- 
tor (1598-1680)^ He designed the colossal colonnade of 
St. Peter's in Rome. 

184: 11. Ponte Sant' Angelo. Bridge of Saint Angelo. 

184 : 13. Sbirro. Policeman. 

184 : 14. Doganiere. Custom-house officer. 

184 : 18. Antoninus. One of the early Roman emperors. 



NOTES 243 

184:21. Minerva. Goddess of wisdom, in Roman 
mythology. 

184 : 26. Chasseurs de Vincennes. The Duke of 
Orleans' rifle corps ; so called because they were garri- 
soned at Vincennes. 

185:2. S. P. Q. R. (Senatus Populusque Romanus). 
The Senate and People of Rome. 

185:3. Custode. Keeper. 

185 : 10. Marathon and Lexington. References to 
famous battles. 

185 : 29. Caracalla. A Roman emperor, 212-217. 

186 : 13. Fuori le mura. Outside the walls. Rome 
was at one time a walled city, and parts of the walls are 
still standing, but the city has grown far beyond them. 
San Paolo = St. Paul. 

186 : 29. Victoria. Queen of England from 1837 to 1901. 

187 : 19. Piazza Rusticucci. The open area or public 
square before the Piazza di S. Pietro in the Vatican. 

187 : 21. Bramante. An Italian architect and painter, 
who designed St. Peter's at Rome. 

188 : 20. Q. E. D. (Quod erat demonstrandum.) 
Which was to be proved. 

189 : 2. Panza ; Quixote. In Cervantes' " Don 
Quixote," Panza is the squire whose good sense is contin- 
ually called into play when his master is over-rash. 

189^: 21. Pegasus. According to classical mythology, 
the winged horse on which Bellerophon rode against the 
chimsera. 

190 : 2. Puseyism. The principles of Dr. Pusey and 
others at Oxford, England, as exhibited in a series of 
publications, entitled " Tracts for the Times," from 1833 
to 1841. 



244 NOTES 

190: 31. San Lorenzo. A famous church in Florence, 
containing the tombs of the Medici with their famous 
sculptured figures by Michael Angelo. 

191 : 3. Murray. The reference is to the famous 
guide book published by Murray of London. 

191 : 8. Putti. Plural of " putto," meaning a little 
boy. The u is pronounced properly like oo in moon, and 
not with the short u sound of the English word " putty." 

191 : 14. Lingua franca. Frank language ; bold, free 
speech. Lowell intends a punning reference to correct 
French, the Italian for which would be " lingua francese." 

192 : 3. Sentry-boxes of Zion. Satirical reference to 
rude structures that pass for churches. 

192:12. " Mihiest," etc. " I intend to die in a tavern." 

192 : 15. Campagna. Field or estate. 

192 : 18. Sistine Miserere. The fiftieth psalm, usually 
appointed for penitential acts, in the Latin version, and 
repeated in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. 

192 : 24. St. Paul's. A famous cathedral in London, 
the architect of which was Sir Christopher Wren. Note 
the play on the word Wren as opposed to Angel from 
Angelo. 

193 : 4. Browning. In the tenth division of Browning's 
" Christmas Eve " is to be found the following descrip- 
tion of St. Peters : 



"And wkat is this that rises propped 
With pillars of prodigious girth? 
Is it really on the earth, 
This miraculous Dome of God ? 
. . . What is it, yon building 
Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding, 
With marble for brick, and stones of price 
For garniture of the edifice." etc. 



NOTES 245 

193 : 20. Pontifex Maximus. Literally, the chief 
pontiff ; the head of the sacred college, in ancient 
Rome, who had supreme jurisdiction over all matters of 
religion. 

194 : 7. Trinita del Monti. Name of a celebrated 
church in Rome, not far from the elevated public gardens, 
the Pincio. Lowell means that he stood on this elevation 
in the vicinity of this church. 

194 : 20. Avanti ! Go ahead ! 

195:21. Schiller's Pegasus. Schiller was a noted 
German poet and dramatist ; Pegasus refers to his poetic 
inspiration or muse, as in the phrase, *' I am on my 
Pegasus," i.e. engaged in A\Titing verses. 

195 : 26. Judas. The disciple who betrayed Christ 
for a few pieces of silver. 

195:31. Nymph Cochituate. Cochituate is the name 
of a small lake in Middlesex County, Mass., which partly 
supplies Boston with water. Lowell wrote an ode in 
celebration of the introduction of the Cochituate water 
into the city of Boston, Oct. 25, 1848. 

196 : 24. Le superflu, chose tres-necessaire. The 
superfluous, a thing very necessary. 

197 : 4. Egeria. This was the name of the nymph, in 
the fabulous history of Rome, who in her grotto near 
Aricia gave lessons in statecraft to Numa Pompilius. 

197 : 6. Pio None. Pius IX. 

197 : 20. Pius. Pius IX, Pope from 1846-1878. 

198 : 9. Diocletian. The Roman Emperor, noted for 
his fierce persecution of the Christians, 303. 

198 : 19. Mile. An athlete of Crotona. It is said 
that he carried through the stadium at Olympia a heifer 
four years old, and ate the whole of it afterwards. When 



246 NOTES 

old, he attempted to tear up an oak tree, but the parts 
closing held him fast, till he was devoured by wolves. 

198 : 27. Goitre. Lowell is here using this word in the 
sense of abnormal enlargement, therefore disagreeably 
noticeable. 

199 : 14. Vaurien. (French.) Worthless. Faniente. 
(Italian.) Do nothing, lazy. 

200:5. Scudi. Italian; plural of " scudo " ; equivalent 
to ninety-six cents. 

200 : 6. Pauls. Paolo, an old Italian silver coin, 
worth about ten cents. 

200:18. Qualche cosa per carit^ ! Something for 
charity's sake ! 

200 : 22. Triregno. Tiara ; Pope's crown. 

201 : 2. Eh gia ! Truly ! 

201 : 19. Prima Ballerina. Foremost dancing-girl. 

202 : 10. Fourierist. One who believes in the coopera- 
tive socialistic system advanced by Charles Fourier, a 
Frenchman. 

202 : 17. Felicita ; Grazia. The former equivalent to 
*' your health," or German, " gesundheit " ; the latter, 
*' thank you." 

205: 1. Sasso di Dante. Dante's tomb. 

205 : 13. Ancora mi raccapriccia. I am still horror- 
struck. 

205 : 21. Che bellezza ! What perfection ! 

205:23. Patroclus. In Homer's " Iliad," a friend of 
Achilles, who went to battle in Achilles' armor and was 
slain by Hector. 

205 : 30. Bashan. A region in Palestine, east of the 
Jordan; famous for oaks and wild bulls. See Deut. 
iii. 1-14 ; Psalm xxii. 12. 



NOTES 247 

206 : 1. Belle pesche ! Beautiful peaches ! 

206 : 15. Racine. Jean Baptiste, French dramatic 
poet, 1539-1699. 

206 : 23. Prince Polonia. Prince Torlonia. Lowell is 
quoting Thackeray's humorous version of the name. 

207 : 28. Rob Roy. The hero of the novel of the same 
name, by Sir Walter Scott. 

208 : 5. Panache. A plume, or bunch of feathers. 

208 : 7. Gessler. The Austrian governor in Schiller's 
" Wilhehn Tell." 

208 : 15. Briseis. The woman taken captive by the 
Greeks, in the " Iliad," and falling to the lot of Achilles, 
when the spoils were divided. 

208:24. gaudeant, etc. "The eels would rejoice, if 
that man were dead, who would torture them, just as you 
would think, with death." 

208 : 30. Jeremy Taylor. English bishop and author, 
1613-1667. 



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